John Deere has confirmed it plans to layoff more workers through cuts in its global salaried workforce according to Corridor Business Journal.
Deere didn’t release details on the number of salaried employees affected. The most recent round of cuts follow more than 600 previously announced layoffs of Deere’s production workers at three facilities in Illinois and Iowa. The company didn’t say when the additional salaried workforce positions would be eliminated.
In a statement, Deere said, “As the largest global manufacturer of agricultural equipment, John Deere, like many others, faces significant economic challenges, rising operational and manufacturing costs, and reduced customer demand, including a 20 percent decline in sales from 2023 to 2024.”
Impacted employees get up to 12 months’ severance pay based on years of service and will receive payment for any earned and unused vacation or paid time off and other factors.
In early July, around 610 production staff at John Deere plants in Illinois and Iowa were been notified they will be out of a job by the end of the summer.
The company is eliminating around 280 positions from a plant in East Moline, Illinois, while another 230 employees are being let go at a factory in Davenport, Iowa. About 100 production positions at the company’s Dubuque, Iowa, plant will also be eliminated.
The company claimed the layoffs were necessary because there has been a reduction in demand for products produced at some of its facilities in Iowa and Illinois.
However, John Deere announced in June it is moving the manufacturing of skid steer loaders and compact track loaders from its Dubuque, Iowa facility to Mexico by the end of 2026.
In early July, John Deere purchased 234 acres near Lowell, Indiana in Lake County to build a 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse and distribution facility. John Deere has spent $7 million on the site, with plans for the facility to be longer on its side than the Willis Tower—formerly Sears Tower—a 110-story, 1,451-foot skyscraper in Chicago.
John Deere says it generated nearly $10.2 billion in profits in 2023, while the company’s CEO, John May, received $26.7 million in total compensation in 2023 according to the company’s public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). May’s compensation in 2022 was listed at $20.3 million.
Sources: Corridor Business Journal, NAFB News Service
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