John Deere to Lay Off 150 Workers at Iowa Factory

In this April 9, 2019, wheels are attach as workers assemble a tractor at John Deere's Wat
Zach Boyden-Holmes/Telegraph Herald via AP
Amy Furr

Approximately 150 workers at the John Deere Des Moines Works in Ankeny, Iowa, will experience layoffs soon.

Factory leaders notified workers about the layoffs on Friday, KTVO reported Monday.

“The company said about 150 production employees will be placed on ‘indefinite layoff effective over the months of April and May,'” the outlet continued.

Details regarding the decision are still a mystery. In a statement, John Deere noted that “Each John Deere factory balances the size of its production workforce with the needs of the individual factory to optimize the workforce at each facility.”

There are reportedly 1,700 workers at the Ankeny factory and over 1,000 of them hold positions in production and maintenance.

It is interesting to note that in June 2022 John Deere planned to move part of its Tractor and Cab Assembly Operations facility located in Waterloo, Iowa, where about 1,100 people worked, to Mexico by the 2024 fiscal year.

Breitbart News reported at the time:

Breitbart News has previously documented the offshoring of American manufacturing jobs to Mexico. In 2021, the Ford Motor Co. announced plans to offshore a $900 million investment for a plant “originally intended for an Avon Lake, Ohio, plant to a site in Mexico.”

Breitbart News also reported “[i]n 2020, about 108,846 Americans lost their jobs as a result of free trade,” according to federal data.

In September, John Deere Harvester Works in East Moline, Illinois, announced it was laying off over 200 production workers, KWQC reported.

The layoffs represented nearly “ten percent of the workforce at Harvester Works,” the outlet noted:

Meanwhile, a recent survey found the wave of layoffs happening in the tech industry, along with the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), has caused significant anxiety when it comes to job security for Americans, Breitbart News reported Monday.

“Fast Company reports that the constant stream of mass layoff announcements from major tech companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter in recent months has caused an atmosphere of uncertainty across the workforce,” the outlet said.

On top of those worries is AI and how it could possibly disrupt different kinds of professions, the report added.

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