WA slaughter trends explained
07 April 2022
COVID-19 cases have been relatively low in WA for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic but recently there has been a spike in cases in the state. Just under 9,000 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in WA on Friday 1 April alone.
Social distancing and isolation requirements have put additional pressure on businesses already grappling with nationwide labour shortages, with people in the state having to isolate if they are symptomatic or a close contact of a confirmed case.
As a result, processing facilities have faced difficulties in accessing skilled labour – and the softening of slaughter numbers in WA over the last few weeks can be attributed to these shortages within the processing sector.
Three weeks ago, the state of WA was processing 47,319 lambs each week. Last week, weekly slaughter dropped to 26,890. This represents a drop of 43% in processor throughput over two weeks. Compared to 2020 slaughter levels, last week’s lamb slaughter in WA was also 55% below the 59,836 head that were processed in the corresponding week of that year.
Processors in the eastern states experienced similar COVID-19 induced labour shortages this January but recovered after a month. WA producers looking to sell lambs before cropping begins may give some consideration to the current slaughter landscape before selling.
In the last month, trade lamb prices in WA have fallen 17% from 822c/kg to 682c/kg, reflecting the reduction in processor activity.
Figure 1: lamb slaughter.
Figure 2: sheep slaughter.
