This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.
This week, we are sharing the results from a recent study conducted under the direction of Dr. Andreia Arruda at Ohio State University. In this project, researchers are looking at the impact of labor turnover on farm productivity.
Key Points
- The US swine industry faces critical labor supply issues and is plagued by high rates of employee turnover.
- This study investigated the association between employee turnover and productivity using a sample of eleven farrow-to-wean farms in Ohio.
- There was a considerable amount of variability in the turnover rate for the year among the participating farms.
- The occurrence of an involuntary turnover event (employee was terminated) was significantly associated with improvements in monthly number of pigs weaned per sow and pre-weaning mortality 2-months after the event.
