Deere & Co. has informed approximately 125 employees at two factories in Iowa that they will be laid off indefinitely. The workforce adjustment affects about 75 employees at Deere’s Dubuque factory and about 50 in Ankena.
The layoff at the Ankeny location, which is part of the agriculture and turf division, is effective April 15. The Dubuque facility is included in the company's construction and forestry division and the layoff there is effective April 29.
Deere said the company continues to balance the size of its manufacturing workforce with market demand for products at individual factories.
Worldwide net sales and revenues for the company’s fiscal first quarter declined 13 percent to $5.525 billion compared to $6.383 billion last year.
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.
