About 350 workers at a Whirlpool plant in rural Iowa will lose their jobs on March 9 — a blow to the community where the plant has powered the local economy for eight decades. The layoffs are also another sign of the struggling US manufacturers, which have continued despite the Trump administration’s promises to revive the sector.
In April 2025, President Trump said that “jobs and factories will come back to our country” because of his tariffs, which significantly raised tariffs on imports from all US-based businesses. Although some companies have responded to the tariffs with promising to invest in the US, building those factories can take years. Such commitments are non-binding, leaving it unclear when, or if, such plans will be developed.
Meanwhile, job search data shows that American manufacturers are continuing to cut jobs, with America losing 83,000 manufacturing jobs in Trump’s first year in office. Economists point to several causes of the job losses, including automation, long-term headwinds from lower wages overseas to higher prices and economic instability caused by the Trump administration’s tariffs. The tariffs hurt some US manufacturers who rely on imported parts and make their products domestically.
“Jobs are still in danger”
The union representing workers at Whirlpool’s Amana, Iowa, plant asked Trump for help in a Feb. 24 letter, citing his commitment to putting “America First” and asking him to “require Whirlpool to stop these planned layoffs.” The task force said it has yet to receive a response from the White House.
“This is a story that needs to be told to the American public,” Brian Bryant, global president of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), the union that represents Whirlpool’s 1,300 workers, told CBS News. “All is not well in this country, and every day, workers’ jobs are still in jeopardy by companies that favor profits over workers.”
He added, “Even though this administration is preaching that they’re going to stop that, we’re not seeing it.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement to CBS News, Whirlpool said the planned job cuts are part of a “modern strategic plan that will position the Amana plant for sustainability and profitability.”
The publicly traded company, which has a market cap of about $3.9 billion, is the largest U.S. manufacturing company. In 2025, Whirlpool has projected revenue of 38 million dollars on sales of 15 billion dollars.
Manufacturers face a number of challenges, from the Trump administration’s tariffs to long-term competition, economists told CBS News.
The Trump administration’s tax policies are also in motion, adding to the uncertainty facing many US businesses. Last month, the Supreme Court he hit the ground the president’s “independence day” taxes, although Mr. Trump imposed new international tariffs of 15% shortly after the ruling.
“Last year was a continuation of a long trend – nothing printed, nothing returned,” said Aaron Terrazas, an economist with Gusto, which provides payment services to small and medium-sized businesses.
The US has lost 4.5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. By comparison, global manufacturing employment during that time has increased by about 71 million workers, with most of this growth in China, India and Vietnam, according to a 2025 research brief from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
One of the many goals of Mr. Trump’s tariffs is to raise the cost of manufacturing goods outside of America enough so that companies have the financial support to renovate their factories and hire American workers.
But some domestic companies still find it cheaper to shift jobs overseas. A 2025 survey from the Reshoring Institute, a non-political think tank focused on bringing manufacturing back to the US, found that a third of US equipment makers said they plan to move their production offshore, citing cost as a motivation.
The Whirlpool plant in Amana, which has a population of less than 1,000, has felt the impact of the process, union officials told CBS News. The factory now has about 1,300 workers, up from 3,000 workers in 2020, with jobs being transferred to another Whirlpool facility in Mexico, said IAM’s Bryant.
“If you look at the last 20 years, they have invested more than a billion dollars in developing their Mexican production, and their exports to Mexico have increased significantly,” he said. “This is not modern – this is a lack of jobs.”
Economic changes
A key measure of the US labor market, ADP’s monthly payrolls report, showed on Wednesday that the US lost 5,000 manufacturing jobs in February, although the private sector added 63,000 jobs last month.
“Almost all of the growth came from healthcare,” Laura Ullrich, Indeed’s director of economic research in North America and former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said of the ADP figures.
Health services also drove US job growth last year, a trend that Ullrich predicts will continue in 2026 due to demographic changes such as the aging baby boomer generation, whose members are in need of more medical services.
“I think we’re likely to see an additional portion of any growth activity that we have in that segment, and a stop in other regions,” Ullrich told CBS News.
About 12 million Americans are employed in manufacturing by the beginning of 2026, or about 8% of the US workforce — down from a peak of 38% in World War II, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
Although manufacturing jobs are not as plentiful as they once were, these jobs still pay the same amount as workers without college degrees, the data show. Manufacturing workers earn an average of $36 an hour, above the $26 an hour wage for retail workers and $23.38 for recreation and hospitality workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Making today is not like it was in 1950 — it’s a job,” Gusto’s Terrazas said. “It is this part that is amazingly diverse. We tend to think of it as a good Rust Belt, but there are many small productions of light as well,” such as coffee makers or food producers.
But smaller manufacturers are more sensitive to tax rates and other economic headwinds, given more room to absorb financial shocks than larger firms, Terrazas said. For example, many small US coffee roasters were among those hit by the Trump administration’s tariffs, even the White House. he was given freedom of coffee prices in November.
One roasted in Portland, Oregon, he told CBS News in December that increased revenue from taxes had forced him to lay off two full-time employees. “Now it’s just me and one part-time employee,” Charlie Wicker of Trailhead Coffee Roasters said. “The fact that we are still standing is the job of having little money to keep the lights on.”
The strike would “disrupt” the community
Whirlpool’s Amana division is one of those old-school factories that bolstered US industrial strength. Founded in 1934 by inventor George Foerstner, the Amana company has produced several refrigerators, from the first upright home refrigerator in 1947 to the first floor-standing refrigerator in 1957, according to the company’s website. Whirlpool bought the Amana brand in 2006.
The loss of jobs at the Amana plant will destroy the local economy, which is heavily dependent on agriculture and manufacturing, said Kerry Waddell, an IAM representative who has worked at the Amana plant for 36 years, starting in 1987.
“These workers spend their money in these communities, they send their children to schools there,” he told CBS News. “Right now, they’re losing their jobs, they’re losing their health insurance — on March 9, they lose it immediately.”
Some lawmakers in Iowa are asking Whirlpool to reconsider the job cuts, including Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson, both Republicans. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“These evictions would destroy the community and undermine the domestic manufacturing base that has spent decades building,” they wrote in a letter to Whirlpool.
For now, Whirlpool’s job cuts are still on track, and the union said the company has indicated there may be more job cuts.
“If something doesn’t change, you’re looking at the workforce going down to 500 to 600 people” at the factory, Bryant said. “This, unfortunately, is not just a Whirlpool issue — we’re seeing it elsewhere in IAM.”
“There is a big problem, and it’s time for the federal government and local governments to step in,” he added.
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