Pretoria News reports that that the SA poultry industry is set to lose thousands of jobs by the end of the year, brought on mainly by an oversupply of chicken imports flooding the market.  

So said Kevin Lovell, chief executive of the SA Poultry Association (Sapa).  He was commenting on the pending job losses at Rainbow Chicken which could affect about 1,200 workers.  Lovell said for every 10,000 tons of chicken imported into South Africa, a little more than 1,000 jobs could be lost in the country.  He noted that the government was constrained by international trade protocols and only they could solve the problem.  Lovell added:  “We expect that by the end of the year about 6,000 jobs could be lost. We don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.”  Edwin Mkhize, KZN provincial secretary for Cosatu, said the federation was concerned by the looming retrenchments at Rainbow Chicken and that the three shifts in processing would be reduced to one.

• Read this report by Pretoria News

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page