Ajaw Koueth sat at her dining room table in maroon scrubs, holding her young son. Her daughter watched cartoons in the living room.
Koueth and her family have lived in Perry for five years. They moved there from Des Moines to cut down the commute time for her husband, who worked at the Tyson plant. Shortly after the move, Koueth started working there, as well.
“I was working the ham line,” she said. “It’s just where you cut the meat. It’s a long line, like 16 people.”
She said it paid well, and in 2023, she and her husband bought their home. But less than a year later, Tyson announced it was closing its single-shift Perry facility at the end of June 2024 to make overall operations more efficient.
Koueth said many of the people she worked with, especially those who recently immigrated to the U.S., moved to Des Moines, Ankeny and Marshalltown for jobs. She said it was hard to say goodbye to people she saw every day at work.
“They’re like second family to you,” Koueth said. “Then all of a sudden, you’re not going to see them anymore.”
City officials said Tyson’s closure affected nearly 1,300 employees, 60% of whom lived in Perry. Hundreds more worked at the plant as contracted cleaning crews and cafeteria workers.
Losing the largest employer in the community came just months after a school shooting that killed three people and injured six others.
“Obviously, the last roughly 16, 18 months have been pretty challenging for us in a lot of different ways, both emotionally and economically,” said Sven Peterson, the city administrator. “But the biggest thing that's come out of this last year has just been the resiliency of the people that live in our community and the community as a whole.”
A coalition of city, county and state officials, along with businesses and community leaders, formed to address immediate needs and plan for Perry’s long-term recovery. One of their first actions was organizing several job fairs with Iowa Workforce Development. It focused on local and then regional employers.
The group also ramped up efforts to connect people to resources, like housing and food assistance, mental health services, career counselors and job training.
With the new house, Koueth and her family decided to stay, at least for the short term. She worked at a long-term care facility in town while completing the certified nursing assistant program at the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) Perry VanKirk Career Academy.
As a CNA, Koueth helps residents with their daily activities and hygiene.
“Sometimes they tell you stories that kind of blow your mind,” Koueth said, laughing. “It’s good.”
The starting wage is less than what she earned at Tyson. But with four kids at home, Koueth said she appreciates the two-minute commute and flexibility with the new job. Being certified in a high demand field also ensures she can find work if her family moves back to Des Moines.
In a shaded courtyard in downtown Perry, Manuel de Jesus Hernandez said he worked at the Tyson plant for 24 years, mostly as a trainer on the production floor. He was frustrated with the way Tyson announced the closure and wasn’t sure what he would do at first.
But Hernandez said he’d always been interested in commercial truck driving.
“Sometimes you have to make choices and decisions, and sometimes you have to wait for opportunities to come,” he said. “After [Tyson] closed and I see the opportunity, I didn't think twice.”
Hernandez took classes at DMACC in Perry to prepare for his commercial driver’s license (CDL) permit and completed a CDL program with 160 Driving Academy in Des Moines. He’s now training with a company to become a regional truck driver in the Midwest.
He said the pay and benefits are better than what he had at Tyson, and the new job also allows him to explore new places while maintaining a homebase in Perry, where his family lives.
“I don't call it a job. I call it an adventure,” he said.
In the future, Hernandez would like to own his own truck and business.
A community still recovering
Sven Peterson, the city administrator, said there are reasons to be optimistic nearly a year after the Tyson closure.
“One of my fears starting out was a lot of instability in the single-family housing market, homeowner occupied housing market, and really that's been very stable. We haven't seen a huge flood of homes come on the market,” Peterson said.
Homes that do come on the market are still selling, he said.
“Probably one of the best gauges we have, as far as the population goes, would be the school district and school enrollment numbers,” Peterson said.
An estimated 300 students had a household connection to a Tyson employee in the 2023-2024 school year, he said. According to state data, the district's total served enrollment dropped by 105 students to 1,676 in the 2024-2025 school year.
Peterson is hopeful that the population will rebound with more regional job activity and development opportunities in Perry.
The Iowa Economic Development Authority Board recently approved incentives for an Italian manufacturing company to build its U.S. headquarters in the Perry Industrial Park. A.D.R Axles USA expects to be operational at the end of 2026 and create 35 jobs.
As for the former Tyson plant, Peterson said there haven’t been any updates about a buyer.
“I think [Tyson is] still actively marketing that building and giving tours,” Peterson said. “They do run a very internal process, so we don't know a lot about what's going on, but [we] definitely try and keep in touch with them.”
On a Thursday night in early May, vendors sold tacos and ice cream in downtown Perry. Kids laugh inside a bouncy castle while adults followed the footsteps of a salsa instructor.
It was a celebration for DMACC students, staff and their families to mark the end of the academic year, said Eddie Diaz. He’s the site manager for the DMACC Perry VanKirk Career Academy and sits on the board of Perry Economic Development.
Along with A.D.R Axles USA, Diaz said efforts are underway to bring in more manufacturers.
“We have a couple more in the pipeline that we're hoping to announce here in the next few months. So, things are looking up. We're optimistic," Diaz said. “But I don't want to overstate that, because I do know people that are still underemployed or unemployed.”
Diaz said food insecurity has been much higher since the plant closure, even as pantries and the community have increased their support.
“I would say we're still in the recovery phase,” he said.
Adjusting to meet the needs and interests of workers
Looking back over the last year, Diaz said job fairs were one of the most successful responses to the Tyson plant closure. He said hundreds of former workers connected with local and regional employers.
Surveys from these events also helped DMACC identify programs to add or expand to align the interests of former Tyson workers with in-demand industries in central Iowa.
“We want to ensure that our students are able to get into a field where they're going to be able to support their families,” said Michelle Schott, the integrated education and training coordinator at DMACC Urban.
Commercial truck driving ticked all three boxes. DMACC in Perry added a program called Jumpstart CDL.
“That is really a preparation class for English Language Learners who are wanting to get into the trucking industry but need some additional support when it comes to that technical language and vocabulary,” Schott said.
The program helps students develop strategies to read and study the CDL manual, which Schott said is written at an eighth grade reading level. It also helps them feel confident understanding and giving instructions in preparation for the Commercial Learner’s Permit exam.
Schott said half a dozen former Tyson workers enrolled in Jumpstart CDL in Perry and continued on to earn their CDLs.
Separately, five displaced workers completed the CNA program, and another finished the welding course at DMACC in Perry.
Diaz said he hopes more will sign up this year.
“Frankly, a lot of the people had a tough time getting into our programming because of their English proficiency skill. So, I think the second most valuable asset or opportunity we offered were expanded English language classes,” Diaz said.
The English Language Learner (ELL) coordinator at Perry said at least 50 former Tyson employees participated in additional ELL courses and a special English for Employment series in the aftermath of the plant closure.
In the year ahead, the DMACC Perry VanKirk Career Academy will continue offering more ELL courses, along with digital literacy training. Diaz said this includes learning skills to set up and manage email accounts, searching for jobs and applying online.
“[They’re] some very fundamental skills that they just need to get to be able to get their foot in the door somewhere,” Diaz said.
He said the community college will also add ServSafe, a food and alcohol safety training and certification program.
“That industry, we found out, is the most transferable. People can more quickly adapt to that industry than some of the other industries we've tried helping them with,” Diaz said.
And DMACC and its partners are planning another job fair this summer.
He added that these are challenging times — not just for Perry.
“The job market's tighter than it used to be, but one of the benefits of small-town Iowa is that we're very supportive of each other,” Diaz said. “When you have a strong community that comes together, tough times don't last.”
