This rural town's main employer closed its doors; laid-off workers consider their few options in southern Virginia.

The indefinite closure of a Boar's Head production facility in Jarratt, Virginia, is an added blow to the rural town's economy where the company was the largest employer. Boar's Head decided to close the plant after it was linked to a severe listeria outbreak, which has killed 10 people and hospitalized 59. 
Now, laid-off Boar's Head workers must face a tough job market in manufacturing-depressed southern Virginia, reports Chao Deng of The Wall Street Journal. "For decades, the Boar’s Head deli meat plant has been one of few economic pillars holding up this rural, downbeat part of southern Virginia."

Even though Boar's Head is offering workers severance pay and the possibility of relocation, the sudden closure has left workers shocked and unsure. Deng writes, "Many are scrambling to figure out how to pay their bills and whether they can even stay in a region battered by waves of layoffs and closed businesses."

Many workers believe finding a new job will most likely mean accepting a long commute. Manufacturing work in Virginia has been fading since the 1990s "when the elimination of trade barriers invited global competition," Deng reports. "Textiles and furniture-making went by the wayside." Fletcher Mangum, an economic consultant from Richmond, Virginia, told Deng, "The job opportunities [in southern Virginia] are not good. Manufacturing has had ups and downs but it never quite recovered from the losses of Nafta." 

Overall, Virginia's state economy has struggled, with its rural southern and western regions having suffered the steepest declines. Deng writes, "Year-over-year employment in Greensville County, where the Boar’s Head plant is located, has mostly underperformed that of the state since 2017. . . . Manufacturing makes up about 30% of the economy in Greensville, compared with about 7% for the state."

Greensville resident Marvin Tiller has worked in factories that closed "most of his career," Deng reports. "Before getting laid off from Boar’s Head, the 51-year-old worked for two companies that shut down operations in the area more than a decade back — he was a crane operator for a steel company called Emporia Foundry, as well as a delivery man for Fujifilm Pharmaceuticals. . . . [He's] thinking about getting out of factory work altogether."