CHERRY HILL, N.J. — 500 New Jersey families are having a rough holiday season thanks to a stomach-churning announcement by Conagra Brands.
Conagra — which owns household-known brands including Duncan Hines, Hunt’s Healthy Choice, and Orville Redenbacher’s — has notified New Jersey’s Department of Labor that it will shutter not one but TWO New Jersey locations. More than 500 workers are slated to lose their jobs in spring 2019.
308 of the affected employees work in Parsippany (Morris County).
196 are down in Cherry Hill (Camden County), at the other end of the Turnpike corridor.
The company’s decision is tied to Conagra’s recent purchase of Pinnacle Foods back in October, but the larger pattern is contextually unmistakable.
This news comes on the heels of corporate giant Honeywell’s decision to relocate its corporate headquarters from Morris Plains (also in Morris County) to North Carolina. and Newark losing out on Amazon’s HQ2. New Jersey’s tax-inhibited private sector continues to lag the rest of the nation in job growth as numerous stores plan to close after this holiday season. As of October, the U.S. economy had added 5 million jobs since 2015 while New Jersey lost 50,000 during the same period.
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