At least one Iowa employer plans to be hiring this year. John Deere’s sales of construction implements worldwide have hit record levels, and the Deere Dubuque Works will add up to fifty jobs. In addition to welders and assemblers hired on to make backhoes, skid loaders and other big machines, managers say the corporation’s moving an engineering division to Dubuque. That could bring more white-collar jobs to northeast Iowa from a unit now in Ontario, Canada. Workers at the Dubuque plant have been putting in a lot of overtime according to the head of their United Auto Workers union local, and some of the new hiring will give them a break. All the expansion should be done by the end of this year.
