Husband and wife get laid off from John Deere on the same day

BETTENDORF, Iowa (KWQC/Gray News) - John Deere announced hundreds of layoffs in July, and the layoffs hit one family hard.

Mathew Shiltz and his wife were laid off from Davenport Works on the same day.

“It was tough. I mean, we kind of already knew it. When I had heard it I was, I was on second shift. So the first-shift meeting had already happened. So when I got to work at noon that day, people had told me and we kind of knew it was happening beforehand,” Shiltz said.

The disappointment and betrayal Shiltz said he feels contrasts with how he previously felt about Deere & Company as a brand and its integrity.

“When I got hired on Deere, I was proud,” he said.

Shiltz is not alone. The company has laid off nearly 2,000 this year.

John Deere said its sales are down 20% and cuts are required across the globe.

The United Auto Workers union claims the layoffs are due to “corporate greed.”

“Let’s be clear: there is no need for Deere to kill good American jobs and outsource them to Mexico for cheap labor. The company is forecasted to make $7 billion in profit this year. CEO John May’s total compensation for 2023 was $26.8 million,” the union said in a statement.

Shiltz said the layoffs will affect the community.

“That’s the thing. This community and the Quad Cities is heavily Deere-based with four plants in the area. So when they take these kinds of hits, it doesn’t just affect Deere, it affects a lot of people,” he said.

Now, the family is making cuts of their own, and Schiltz is already picking up odd jobs to make ends meet.

“I went and helped a guy move a washer, do some mowing, just try and pick up some cash jobs to keep my unemployment, you know, but that’s it. It’s going to be hard for me, really hard,” he said.

Schiltz said there is trouble ahead when his and his wife’s severance packages run out as the family has rent, car payments and groceries to worry about.

“And now we’re just, now we’re just trying to figure out how we’re going to pay the bills,” he said.

Following the layoffs, John Deere said it is committed to their workforce.

“As the largest global manufacturer of agricultural equipment, John Deere, like many others in the industry, faces significant economic challenges, including rising global operational and manufacturing costs, and reduced customer demand,” the company said in a statement.

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