John Deere announced a wave of layoffs on Friday that will affect workers in Illinois and Iowa, while planning to open a facility in Mexico in 2026.

In a press release, the company wrote: “We can confirm Deere leadership recently communicated that rising operational costs and declining market demand require enterprise-wide changes in how work gets done to achieve our goals and best position the company for the future.”

The company announced the new facility in Ramos, Mexico earlier this month. The press release also added that the production of mid-frame skid steer loaders and compact track loaders will be moved to the Mexico factory from the Dubuque, Iowa location.

The new layoffs come just one month after they announced hundreds of layoffs at the Waterloo, Iowa plant. These layoffs and others have affected over 1,000 John Deere workers in the past nine months.

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At the Illinois location, the company is underway on renovations, according to a source familiar with the matter. The company is adding rooftop infrastructure at the Moline, Illinois Seeding and Cylinder plant.

John Deere closed trading on Friday valued at almost $103 billion. From 2020 to 2023, the company increased its earnings by 370 percent, from $2.75 billion to $10.17 billion. According to a 2023 company report, 47 percent of their net sales and revenues are derived from outside the US.

US manufacturing jobs have recovered from all-time lows in 2020 but have not fully rebounded from significant reductions in the 2000s.

Many have noted a corporate shift in production to facilities in China and Mexico as a cause of the decrease in US manufacturing jobs in recent decades. China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, which lowered trade barriers between the US and China, allowing US companies to more easily relocate manufacturing internationally. In 2017, it was estimated that 5.7 percent of US factory workers were illegal immigrants.

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