John Deere says it plans to hire more than 400 new employees across its factories and bring back more than 275 previously laid-off workers at its Waterloo, Iowa, operations in the coming months. The company also identified hiring activity at plants in Illinois, Iowa and Kansas, while roughly 125 employees remain on layoff in the Des Moines area.
Company Says Nearly All Laid-Off Workers Asked Back
According to Quad Cities Business, John Deere said all employees previously on layoff in Waterloo, the Quad Cities, Ottumwa and Dubuque have now been asked to return to work. The outlet reported that about 125 employees remain on layoff specifically in the Des Moines area. Deere also said another 60 workers will return to the Harvester Works plant in East Moline, part of a broader callback that one report described as topping 300 employees overall, even as the company separately specified more than 275 returning at Waterloo alone.
The hiring push comes on the heels of a September announcement, when Deere said it would call back almost 400 workers to its Quad Cities plants, the same outlet noted. Taken together, the company says its total callbacks since 2024 now add up to about 1,000 employees, as reported by KWQC.
New Openings Span Three States
Beyond the recalls, Deere identified new hiring opportunities at Harvester Works and Seeding and Cylinder in Moline, the North American Parts Distribution Center in Milan, and at Davenport Works, Dubuque Works, Ottumwa Works and Coffeyville Works in Kansas. The company has not laid out a detailed timeline for when those positions or the callbacks will take effect, saying only that they will happen in the coming months, per the same report. The hiring opportunities span facilities in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas.
KWQC reported that Deere framed the expanded workforce as a way to position the company to meet customer needs across a range of operating environments, including future labor negotiations. Deere's announcement covers recalls and new hires across Illinois, Iowa and Kansas, and comes after the company laid off hundreds of workers in several rounds in 2024 and roughly 400 more workers in 2025. The company had recalled 99 workers at its Davenport and Dubuque facilities back in January, according to WQAD.
A Sector Still Digging Out of a Downturn
The reversal follows a stretch of repeated layoffs tied to decreased demand and lower order volumes, as Deere said when announcing more than 230 job cuts across Harvester Works, Seeding and Cylinder, and the Waterloo Foundry in August 2025, according to KCRG. The East Moline Harvester Works plant alone has seen its workforce shrink by more than 1,000 employees since 2023, per IPM Newsroom's reporting at ipmnewsroom.org.
That pain has shown up across the wider industry. Agricultural, construction and mining machinery manufacturing employment has declined nationally and across the Midwest since 2023, according to a farmdocdaily analysis that put the national sector at roughly 200,000 workers, well below a peak of more than 250,000 jobs in 2014. Iowa, the same analysis found, led the region in 2025 with 21,780 jobs in the sector, ahead of Illinois at 19,440 — and Iowa's employment in the industry has actually grown 30% since 2002, even as Illinois and Wisconsin each saw roughly 25% declines over that same stretch, per farmdocdaily.illinois.edu.
Deere remains one of the region's biggest employers, with a workforce presence the farmdocdaily report flagged as central to both the Quad Cities and Waterloo economies. Deere's Waterloo Tractor Operations complex alone employs more than 4,000 workers, according to the Des Moines Register. That same report found the company had shed 2,197 jobs in Iowa, including 1,247 in Waterloo, since March 2024, citing the state's WARN layoff-notice website. The latest announcement includes plans for new hires and callbacks.
