CNH Industrial, the parent company of Case and New Holland Construction Equipment, will shutter its plant in Burlington this spring, laying off 209 workers, according to the Iowa Worker Adjustment and Retraining, or WARN, website.

The decision to close the plant was announced in November 2024 and finalized early last November after an agreement was reached with the United Auto Workers. This week, the company informed the state of Iowa that employees would begin being laid off in March with the final round of layoffs occurring May 29.

Since January 2024, 33 manufacturing companies have announced the closure of 36 plants in Iowa. During that time, 3,646 workers have been laid off. Several of the closures in the past two years have been due to declines in demand for products, outdated facilities and the relocation of production to other countries.

CNH has said the closure of the Burlington plant is due to a 47% decline in demand since 2014 for loader backhoes, the main line of equipment made at the Iowa plant. Demand for skid steers and compact track loaders, which are made at other CNH facilities, has increased nearly 70%, the company said.

The Burlington plant is “the lowest-utilized and most costly facility to maintain” when compared to other CHN facilities, the company said in a news release. CNH Industrial has said it plans to maintain a presence in Burlington that will include engineering and testing.

The Burlington plant began making agricultural equipment in 1937 after J.I Case Co., a predecessor to CNH, bought the factory where furniture had previously been made. Small combines were made during the first 20 years the plant operated. In 1957, the plant began manufacturing the company’s first integrated loader-backhoe tractors, eventually earning Burlington the nickname of “Backhoe Capital of the World.”

Also, this week on the WARN website:

• Wells Fargo announced it would layoff 33 workers from its Jordan Creek campus in West Des Moines. Since February 2024, the San Francisco-based bank has cut 884 jobs in the Des Moines area, according to WARN data. The latest layoffs did not indicate in which sections Wells Fargo was eliminating jobs. The company did not respond to a question about what divisions were affected by the layoffs. A company spokesperson issued a standard response to layoffs when asked about the workforce reduction at the Jordan Creek campus. “We regularly review and adjust staffing levels to align with market conditions and the needs of our businesses. We work hard to identify opportunities for employees in other parts of the company so we can retain as many employees as possible. Where it’s not possible, we provide assistance, such as severance and career counseling.” In December, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf indicated that the company would be laying off more workers in 2026 because of the use of artificial intelligence in coding and other areas.
• Clinton-based Collis LLC announced it would lay off 51 workers in late March. The company, which opened its plant in Clinton in 1912, makes tool holders for metal working industries.

More online: To view an interactive map of Iowa manufacturers that have announced plant closures, click here. To view the spreadsheet, click here.