Deere will lay off an unknown number of employees

Deere’s Moline headquarters has laid off 298 full-time employees, and John Deere Harvester Works in East Moline has laid off another 21 workers, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity reported Friday.

The job cuts were first reported by the Des Moines Register.

That’s in addition to the 170 Iowa Deere workers who lost their jobs Wednesday: 69 in Waterloo, 67 at John Deere Financial in Johnston and 34 in Dubuque.

More than 2,300 Deere employees have lost their jobs in recent months, including 961 in Waterloo since April.

“As the largest global manufacturer of agricultural equipment, John Deere, like many companies in our industry, is facing significant economic challenges, rising operating and manufacturing costs and weaker customer demand, including a 20 percent decline in sales from 2023 to 2024,” Deere said in a statement Thursday.

“This decline in product demand and increased operating costs have unfortunately forced us to make difficult decisions, including layoffs at John Deere manufacturing facilities and reductions in our global payroll workforce.

“We are committed to providing relief and benefits to impacted salaried workers. As part of this commitment, we are extending the following support to impacted salaried workers in the U.S.:

• Maximum 12 months severance pay based on number of years of service.
• Pro rata calculated short-term incentives (STI) and long-term incentives (LTIC) compensation.
• Payment for accrued and unused vacation days or paid time off and other factors.
• Access to ongoing health and wellness benefits and 12 months of professional employment services.

“While the decision to reduce roles within the company was challenging, the company is confident that these adjustments, combined with our continued efforts to reduce costs and align production and inventory levels, will strongly position John Deere for the future,” the statement said.

In an attachment to Thursday’s statement, titled “John Deere’s Commitment to American Manufacturing,” the company noted:

• Since 2019, John Deere has invested more than $2 billion in our U.S. manufacturing facilities, including our new See & Spray line at Des Moines Works in Des Moines, Iowa, the X9 combine assembly line at Harvester Works in East Moline, Illinois, a new excavator factory in Kernersville, North Carolina, and new tractor assembly lines in Waterloo.
• To position our U.S. factories to perform these high-value-added activities, it is sometimes necessary to move less complex operations, such as cabin assembly, to other locations.
• John Deere’s economic impact on our American home communities and all communities where we operate is estimated at $27 billion.
• In the U.S., John Deere employs approximately 30,000 people at more than 60 U.S. locations in 16 states. Meanwhile, our valued John Deere dealers employ more than 50,000 people at dealerships across the country, and the company will have spent more than $16 billion with U.S. suppliers in 2023.

In its May second-quarter earnings release, Deere reported a sales decline of more than 15 percent, the third straight quarter of year-over-year sales declines. Company executives said at the time that they expected further sales declines in the second half of the fiscal year and said the company would “continue to take proactive steps to reduce production and inventory.”

Deere & Co. posted quarterly profit of $2.37 billion, down from $2.86 billion in the same period a year earlier. The company also cut its full-year 2024 profit forecast for the second time, as farmers bought fewer tractors and other equipment amid falling crop prices.

The company reported this month that John Deere Waterloo Operations currently employs about 5,000 workers, about 3,000 of whom work in manufacturing and maintenance.