Dive Brief:
- Tractor and construction equipment maker Deere & Co. announced plans to hire and call back hundreds of workers across its Midwest manufacturing sites ahead of future labor contract negotiations.
- The company on Friday said it will hire more than 400 workers at certain Illinois, Iowa and Kansas facilities, as well as call back more than 275 employees to its Waterloo, Iowa, operations.
- This would bring Deere’s total worker callbacks to roughly 1,000 since 2024, according to the company. It is looking to rebuild its workforce after cutting more than 2,000 industrial and corporate jobs that year in response to slow demand and a weak farm economy.
Dive Insight:
The Moline, Illinois-based company started bringing back employees earlier this year, including 275 across Iowa by February, and signaled more returns as equipment demand rises.
While orders for construction equipment have increased, largely in response to the U.S. data center buildout, Deere in August maintained its full-year expectations for large agricultural equipment sales to be low as farmers continue to navigate higher input costs and market uncertainty from tariffs.
As a result, the company raised production rates at its construction factories, but continued to underproduce at its agricultural factories to meet slower demand, executives said in a third quarter earnings call.
Despite these conditions, Deere accelerated its rehiring efforts in September and October. This came after labor negotiations collapsed with the United Auto Workers in August.
Union members rejected Deere’s two-year contract proposal, citing worker layoffs and outsourcing as a key concern. The two parties are set to continue negotiations, which could lead to potential strikes if they cannot agree on new terms before the deal expires Oct. 31, 2027. The UAW represents more than 10,000 Deere workers across the United States, the Guardian reported in 2021 when the last massive walkout happened.
Deere is hiring back hundreds of workers to “build dealer inventory ahead of upcoming planting and harvest cycles, support long-term operational planning, and position the company to continue serving customers through all operating environments, including future labor negotiations,” a spokesperson said in an email Oct. 7.
More recently, Deere said all employees who were previously laid off across Iowa in Waterloo, Ottumwa and Dubuque, as well as Quad Cities, Illinois, “have been asked to return to work.”
The company is also hiring at other facilities, including: Harvester Works, Seeding and Cylinder and North American Parts Distribution Center in Illinois; Davenport Works, Dubuque Works and Ottumwa Works in Iowa; and Coffeyville Works in Kansas. Deere said 125 workers are still laid off in the Des Moines area.
The UAW did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Deere’s accelerated hiring.
Separately, Reps. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Rick Allen, R-Ga., sent a letter on Friday to the UAW seeking answers about how the union handled its contract extension vote with Deere.
They received complaints that voting hours and locations were difficult for some workers to cast their ballots. The lawmakers requested documents showing how the “vote was conducted, ballots were counted, and results were reported” by Nov. 13. They said their inquiry was not about the overall outcome of the vote itself but rather how it was conducted.
Walberg and Allen are chairmen of the House Education and Workforce Committee, and the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee, respectively.
Deere is scheduled to release its fourth quarter earnings on Wednesday, Nov. 25, before the market opens.
