John Deere Harvester Works announces indefinite layoffs

EAST MOLINE, Ill. (KWQC) - John Deere Harvester Works has announced indefinite layoffs coming in October.

Workers reacted to the news Wednesday evening, and provided insight into the events leading up to the layoff and how they learned about it.

According to a media release, John Deere has informed members of the workforce at John Deere Harvester Works in East Moline, that approximately 225 production employees will be placed on indefinite layoff effective Oct. 16.

The media release stated that employees were told of the layoffs by factory leadership in meetings today at the factory.

Although John Deere has hired hundreds of employees in the Quad Cities in recent years, the company has consistently stated that each Deere factory balances the size of its production workforce with the needs of the individual factory to optimize the workforce at each facility, the media release said.

The media release continued to say that John Deere Harvester Works currently has about 2,300 total employees with about 1,975 of them working in production and maintenance jobs.

TV6 spoke with Illinois, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin about his reaction to the layoffs at Deere.

“Deere is a great company and a great employer in the region,” Sen. Durbin said. “I’m sorry that there’s a setback in terms of their workforce, but I hope that they can recover quickly.”

TV6 has reached out to UAW for a response and have not heard back.

This is a developing story. TV6 will continue to provide coverage online and on-air as it becomes available.

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