Photo from Univision news broadcast
CHICAGO – A Chicago area bakery lost one-third of its workforce during immigration raids in June and July this year that has cost them over $21 million, ARYZTA Bakery's 2017 report shows.
The bakery, which makes hamburger buns for McDonald's and other vending machine companies, says the recovery is taking a long time. They are being forced to increase wages in order to get the staff back up to the 2500 plus level.
“It’s proceeding very, very slowly because it’s like having a brand new factory and a brand new workforce,” Chief Executive Officer Kevin Toland said on the call, according to Bloomberg News. “That’s presenting a lot of challenges, as you can imagine.”
The company says those hired that were rounded up in the immigration raid came through a third party recruiter, and ARYZTA had no way of knowing whether the employment candidates were legally in the country.
The Trump Administration's focus on detention and deportation of those in the U.S. illegally are being blamed for the loss by liberal news source's like Think Progress, which wrote Tuesday:
Earlier this year, the president signed executive orders on immigration to ramp up the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants. Those orders expanded the type of crimes punishable by deportation and helped to embolden federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to pursue undocumented immigrants without criminal records.
Job after job available at ARYZTA is listed on JobsGalore.com: