When I read these as a recruiter, I see a workforce that is not behaving like people who are constantly chasing the next paycheck. The finding of our Poultry Live Production Industry Insights survey feels so telling to me, because long hours and workload at 58.97% show up as the strongest reasons managers leave, even edging out pay. In an industry that already pays well, that kind of complaint usually means the pressure is routine and heavy enough that money stops being a reason to stay.
Pay still matters, of course, and it shows up right behind workload in the survey. But when people tell you they are leaving mainly because they are overworked, they are basically saying they have reached the point where the job is taking things from them that compensation cannot replace.
I hear this all the time in recruiting conversations. These candidates can describe their comp package clearly, yet they struggle to describe what a normal week feels like because the week never really resets.
Tenure and stability make this more serious
What makes this more interesting is that these respondents also do not sound like flighty workers. Most of them (74.36%) say they expect to stay with their current employer in the next 12 months, and the most common next move is retirement (43.59%). This tells me that poultry live production still attracts or keeps people who value stability, who build tenure, and who see their work as a long career rather than a stepping stone. When a tenure minded workforce still reports workload as the top reason for leaving, I read that as a sign that departures are rarely casual.
In recruiting, that kind of pattern usually means people do not leave when they get mildly unhappy. They stay and try to push through because they have pride in the work and because they have built a life around the role. They finally leave when the strain finally crosses a line.
From the employer side, this can look sudden even though it has been building for months. And the survey makes that feel likely because the intention to stay is high while the complaint about workload is even higher.
The pressure sits where the industry already struggles to hire
I also think this connects to the kind of roles the survey flags as hardest to fill. The most difficult category sits in field and flock leadership, with Field Service Tech, Flock Supervisor, and Advisor coming out on top at 41.03% as a hardest to fill role category. Those are roles that carry operational urgency in a way many people outside production do not fully grasp, since the work follows the animals and the conditions rather than the calendar. When a role operates on that rhythm, the person in it can feel permanently on call even if the schedule on paper looks reasonable.
Once that becomes normal, the industry ends up in a loop that recruiting alone cannot solve. When a seat is hard to fill, the work just spreads across the people who remain. That pushes their hours up, and then they start thinking about leaving too. This is how a talent shortage becomes structural, since the shortage itself makes the jobs heavier, and the heavier jobs shrink the pool further.
The quiet urgency behind retirement
The retirement signal makes this feel more urgent in a quiet way. If a large portion of professionals see retirement as their next move, then a lot of experience and stability is sitting with senior people. When workload is already pushing managers to the edge, the industry risks losing that experience without enough mid-level development ready to replace it. That is the kind of problem that does not show up as a crisis until the moment you suddenly cannot staff the jobs that keep performance steady.
So my blunt recruiter take is that these results describe an industry where the money is not the biggest differentiator anymore. Many employers can pay competitively. The real differentiator is whether the work is built in a way that lets capable leaders stay healthy and effective for years, since the candidates who have the skills to run live production do not just ask what the salary is. They ask what happens when someone is out, who covers, how decisions get made, whether the operation runs with enough support, and whether the person in the role will ever truly be off. When the answers feel vague, candidates assume the workload will be crushing, because that is the pattern they have already lived.
If I were advising an employer based on this survey, I would tell them to treat workload as part of their talent brand. The market is listening for proof that the role has coverage, support, and a realistic pace. The companies that can offer that will keep people longer, hire faster, and suffer fewer surprise resignations, especially in a workforce that generally wants to stay and finish strong rather than bounce around.
If this resonates, it’s usually because you’re seeing the same thing inside your own operation, and the details matter when you start asking what to fix first. If you want the full raw results of the Poultry Live Production Industry Insights survey so you can compare your experience with what professionals are reporting across the industry, email me at Cris@continentalsearch.com
and I’ll send it over.
About the Author
Cris Soronio joined Continental Search in 2023 as a Talent Scout and was the first one from her batch to receive a Revenue Generator award. Five months later, Cris was promoted to Recruiter and has been connecting top talents in swine live production roles in the US and Canada with leading organizations in these sectors.
