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John Deere has announced it will make 600 job cuts across three US factories just weeks after workers predicted – and criticized – forthcoming layoffs as the company shifted production to Mexico.
The layoffs will affect around 310 employees at plants in Dubuque, Iowa, and Daveport, Iowa, with 280 further job cuts at a site in East Moline, Illinois.
Employees at the agricultural facility predicted the downsizing in June after a string of layoffs since October last year.
“We know a layoff is coming, we don’t know if, how many or when it will happen,” one employee told the Guardian. “We’re expecting to finish production in mid-August and believe we will see a large layoff then.”
John Deere told CNN in a statement Friday that the cuts are due to reduced demand for the products made by the factories in Illinois and Iowa, which include harvesting equipment and construction and forestry equipment respectively.
“To better position Deere to meet future demand, we continue to take proactive steps to reduce production and inventory,” they stated.
In October 2023, John Deere announced 250 layoffs at the Illinois facility, and a further 34 job cuts in May 2024.
At its Iowa sites, a reported 650 layoffs have already been made in 2024 alone.
The company has previously announced plans to shift production to a new facility in Ramos, Mexico, in a move which has been condemned by its workers.
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“We get wind of more layoffs daily, it seems, and it’s causing uncertainty all over,” the worker mentioned above said to the Guardian. “The only reason for Deere to do this is greed.”
The worker noted in 2023, John Deere reported a profit of over $10billion, and its CEO John May earned $26.7million in total compensation.
Since then, the company has reported a drop in revenue and forecasted a 2024 income of $7billion in a May earnings call. It cited higher production costs, lower shipment volumes, and volatile weather that contributed to a lack of customer demand.
Another former worker who took early retirement this year told the Guardian that production shifts and job cuts have a damaging effect on the communities surrounding the plants.
“[For] a lot of these communities, like mine in Ottumwa, losing John Deere would be an extremely big loss,” he stated. “It’s a town of 28,000, and the only other manufacturing is a pork processing facility, so it doesn’t leave a lot of options for jobs.”
The ex-employee also criticized the planned production shift to Mexico. “A multinational corporation like Deere sees Mexico as pretty attractive for a cheap labor source: they can import steel cheaper there and bring it across the border and sell it to the majority of their market in the US,” he claimed. “It’s a sign of the times, perpetuating what’s been going on with the loss of manufacturing here in America, good union jobs and otherwise.”
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that machinery manufacturing jobs, including the production of agriculture and construction equipment, have declined by 9,000 employees in 2024 so far.
