Laid off from BASF.

What BASF layoffs have meant for employees

At Research Triangle Park in 2016, BASF's own estimate came in below the figure on its notice, and BASF told CBS 17 that was because the people affected could apply for other open positions in the company. That chance to apply was offered to the employees in that 2016 restructuring, which hit the Plant Science division, headquartered in the park. The same plan was to keep Ames, Iowa at reduced size and to close the field testing site in Kekaha, Hawaii and a site in Puerto Rico. If your job was in North Carolina, the state's process is laid out at North Carolina unemployment benefits.

McIntosh went the other way. BASF's count as Fox 10 reported it in May was around 100 employees, nearly half the workforce, while the state's WARN list posted in July showed 79. The dates came from separate records as well, BASF's July statement putting the end of the production lines at early 2027 and the July state listing naming a September 30 closure, so if you're at McIntosh and lining up what comes next, it can matter which of those dates covers your role. The Mobile Chamber told Fox 10 that the area had opportunities through training or a direct link to employers and that it would bring a team on-site with Bishop State, Coastal Alabama and local employers, and Fox 10 pointed affected workers to resources on the chamber's website. For an Alabama job, what the state asks of a claimant is summarized at Alabama unemployment benefits.

For scale on the American side, the BASF Report 2025 gives a North American headcount 317 lower when 2025 closed than a year earlier, by our arithmetic. That's a net change, which folds in anyone hired during the year, and the report states its reasons for the group as a whole, chiefly departures under its cost savings programs and the sale of a Brazilian paints business. Worldwide, BASF's July 2026 results release put the reduction from January 2024 through June 2026 at about 7,000 employees, leaving out divestitures and new staff at its Zhanjiang site, and its chief executive said more positions went in the first half of 2026 than in the two years before combined. The same release has full-time equivalents at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen falling below 30,000 in May 2026, the first time since 1954.

Sales sit outside that tally, and a 1996 Fourth Circuit ruling shows how one earlier BASF sale played out for salaried staff. When BASF sold its Williamsburg, Virginia acrylic fibers plant to Mann Industries in 1989, salaried employees who went to work for the buyer at the same pay got no severance, because the court read BASF's May 1989 policy as paying only when employment ceased permanently, and in that sale only people neither offered a job by the buyer nor moved within BASF were paid. Applying that plan to that sale, the court also said that once the seller's employees became the buyer's, the seller no longer owed them severance for later layoffs. Both holdings were about the 1989 Williamsburg sale and the May 1989 plan.

BASF's two Florham Park notices were posted less than a year apart, and New Jersey records the second one with a span of effective dates running to the last day of 2026. That span covers the notice as a whole. If BASF gives you an individual date in writing, that document can help show where you fall within the state's range. For a New Jersey job, the state's claim rules are at New Jersey unemployment benefits.

A sourced history of BASF layoffs

• July 2026, McIntosh, Alabama production lines set to stop

  BASF told Fox 10 it would stop multiple production lines at its McIntosh plant by the end of the first quarter of 2027, and the state's WARN list posted July 22 showed 79 employees affected by a closure planned for September 30.

• July 2026, Florham Park, New Jersey notice posted

  A BASF Corporation notice covering 66 Florham Park workers went up on New Jersey's 2026 WARN notice list in July, with effective dates running from November 1 through December 31, 2026.

• September 2025, Florham Park, New Jersey notice posted

  On New Jersey's 2025 WARN list, a BASF notice for Florham Park workers posted in September gives December 31, 2025 as its effective date.

• February 2023, cost savings program focused on Europe

  A European cost program would have a net effect on around 2,600 positions worldwide, counting new hub jobs, BASF said in its February 2023 results release, and separate production changes at Ludwigshafen would likely affect around 700 positions, with its CEO very confident most of those employees could be offered work in other plants.

• March 2022, Morrisville, North Carolina site closure notice

  BASF Corporation's March 15 notice for its site at 3500 Paramount Parkway in Morrisville, logged in North Carolina's 2022 WARN summary, reported a permanent closure affecting 107 workers effective May 16.

• April 2016, Research Triangle Park plant science layoffs

  After a February 2016 release planned to cut about 350 plant biotechnology positions, 140 of them in North America, an April 28 notice listed 190 Research Triangle Park positions, and BASF told CBS 17 it expected only about 106 layoffs.

What to do if you're laid off from BASF

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. BASF's biggest hubs: New Jersey, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what BASF's hub states run: New Jersey, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.