John Deere job cuts reflect slower agricultural economy
John Deere job cuts reflect slower agricultural economy
John Deere is cutting about 600 jobs at its factories in the Midwest, it confirmed this week. The company known for its tractors has seen sales slump this year, along with its competitors.
As one of the world’s largest manufacturers of farm equipment, John Deere is often looked to as a bellwether for the agricultural economy. So what’s behind the slump?
Farmers have less money to spend this year, because crop prices have gone down, according to Pat Westhoff, an agricultural economist at the University of Missouri.
“There’s a different story for every crop, of course, but there’s a lot of common themes,” he said.
Over the last couple years, the war in Ukraine sent a shock through global grain markets, extreme weather affected some commodities, and demand was still soaring in the wake of the pandemic.
“Since that time, we’ve had some increases in global production, and prices have come back down again to the sort of levels we saw, you know, prior to that run up,” Westhoff said.
These corrections are often cyclical, per Kristen Owen, an analyst at Oppenheimer.
“We’ve historically had these commodity cycles that are — call it three years up, three years down,” she said.
And many farmers had already made hay when the sun shone and bought all the farm equipment they’ll need for a while.
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