Poultry plants have jobs to fill, but workers are scarce

On the floors of a poultry processing plant in Murrayville, workers speak 13 different languages. Fieldale Farms President Tom Hensley said he estimates about 50 or so refugees and other immigrants come to Murrayville from the metro Atlanta area daily to work in the plant.“They come up in 15-passenger vans full, so there’d be five or six vans every day coming from Clarkston up to Murrayville and going back from Murrayville to Clarkston every day,” he said. But Hensley could use 200 more people right away at the company’s locations in Gainesville, Murrayville and Cornelia. It’s a tough job market statewide for poultry employers trying to find workers, Georgia Poultry Federation President Mike Giles said.