John Deere lays off over 300 in Illinois in latest round of cuts

Last week's layoffs at John Deere affected 489 people across Eastern Iowa and Illinois, with more than 300 of those workers affected in the Quad Cities.

A letter sent to employees earlier this month implied a meeting last Wednesday would notify employees of their fate. The company was tight-lipped about the details, but acknowledged layoffs were imminent.

The agriculture giant notified the state of Illinois that 298 workers at John Deere's headquarters in Moline were laid off Wednesday. The total employment at the headquarters now stands at 1,993.

John Deere included a list of all jobs cut, which included accountants, chief of staff and a variety of people in management and senior positions.

In a second letter to the state sent that same day, an additional 21 employees at John Deere's East Moline Harvester Works were being laid off. The layoffs included multiple engineering and management positions. Total employment at East Moline's Harvester Works now is 2,192.

The letters indicated both facilities are to remain open despite the layoffs being permanent. The employees impacted were to receive an additional 60 days of compensation.

In Iowa, Deere officials notified the state of 170 additional layoffs affecting 34 workers at John Deere Dubuque Works, 67 at John Deere Financial in Johnston and 69 more at John Deere Waterloo Works. The layoff and notice date were both listed as last Wednesday.

With these additional layoffs, that pushes the number of layoffs at Deere in the Eastern Iowa region to more than 2,000 over the course of the last 12 months.