Laid off from Benchmark Electronics.

What Benchmark Electronics layoffs have meant for employees

If a notice at your Benchmark site covers only part of the staff, Phoenix shows how little that settles. In January the company's word for Harbour Drive was streamline, and ABC15's January story put the cut at fewer than half the jobs there. By May the same word sat beside shuttering the plant in ABC15's May story. Anaheim drew two closing notices too, in October 2016 and June 2017, by our tracker. The staff count shows how far the 2020 aim got. Benchmark's June 2020 post put the plant at about 130 people with an aim of doubling that, and the January 2026 count was 152.

Benchmark's filings explain a closing as a network decision, and the explanation hasn't moved. The same sentences open the restructuring note in its 2020 annual report and its third-quarter 10-Q, which say its initiatives have included changing "the number and location of production facilities" and that this "includes transferring programs from higher cost geographies to lower cost geographies." In October 2021 chief executive Jeff Benck listed "scale, geographic placement, current and future costs" among the factors, and Evertiq reported he said Moorpark's customer programs would go to other sites in the network. Those are reasons about a site, and nothing in that list turns on one person's work. Programs moving is also a separate thing from jobs moving, and Benchmark's fiscal 2025 report and that third-quarter 10-Q don't say where Phoenix's programs went.

The annual reports used to say how many people that added up to. The yearly counts for 2015 through 2020 in Benchmark's 2017 report and its 2020 report put about two-thirds of those terminations in the Americas, a region that for Benchmark takes in Mexico as well as the U.S., and the last three years count planned cuts along with finished ones. After 2020 the count stops, and what's left is dollars and site names. One phrase in the fiscal 2025 report and the third-quarter 10-Q fills the space, "other smaller activities involving capacity reductions and reductions in workforce in certain facilities across various regions." If your plant stayed open through a cut, that's the kind of sentence it could fall under, so your own dated record may end up as the most detailed one.

State records hold these U.S. closings, though not always under the name you'd try first. Arizona lists the 2026 notices under plain Benchmark. California's Fremont notice reads Benchmark Precision Technologies, the company's precision machining business, and its Moorpark notice reads Benchmarks Electronics Inc., with the extra s. Those are the names to try in the tracker if you're looking for the notice behind your job, and anyone from the Suntron side will find older notices under Suntron, EFTC and K*Tec.

If you get a Benchmark notice, you could keep a dated copy beside any letter that names your own last day. Several closings here came in stages. Moorpark's notice, as Evertiq described it, had separations coming monthly or quarterly, Evertiq's 2019 report described a first wave at San Jose in mid-January with the rest by the end of the second quarter, and Angleton's letter gave a span of months for the closing, Circuits Assembly reported. So one closing can hold many separate last days. If your job was at Harbour Drive, Arizona unemployment benefits lays out the state's side, and California unemployment benefits covers Fremont and Moorpark.

A sourced history of Benchmark Electronics layoffs

• January to April 2026, Phoenix plant closing

  Notices on January 27 and April 29 covered 65 and 75 jobs at Harbour Drive, by ABC15's January story and Arizona's register. A spokesperson tied the first to a "regular strategic planning process." Operations ceased in the second quarter, Benchmark's third-quarter 10-Q says.

• 2025, Fremont and old Guadalajara sites closed

  Fremont, California, and the old Guadalajara, Mexico, facility both ceased operations in the third quarter, Benchmark's fiscal 2025 report says, with customer programs transitioning into a new Guadalajara facility. Our tracker holds Fremont's notice under Benchmark Precision Technologies.

• March 2022 to March 2023, Moorpark closing

  A notice planned to lay off 206 employees, with separations monthly or quarterly from March 31, 2022, and no bumping rights, according to Evertiq. Operations ceased as of March 31, 2023, Benchmark's fiscal 2025 report says.

• 2020, 648 involuntary terminations counted

  Benchmark counted 648 involuntary terminations that year, executed and planned, about 421 in the Americas, 210 in Asia and 17 in Europe, with $8.2 million in termination costs, according to its 2020 annual report.

• May 2020, Angleton plant closing notice

  The May 28 notice listed 190 jobs in our tracker. The letter, Circuits Assembly reported, put the closing of the 109,000-square-foot plant between January 1 and July 1, 2021, with workers eligible to apply elsewhere in the company.

• July 2019, San Jose and Guaymas closings announced

  The plan to shut both sites was set to affect about 3% of the global workforce. A November filing with California cited 181 San Jose employees, and those affected were to get severance pay and career transition services, Evertiq reported.

• 2015 to 2019, involuntary terminations counted by year

  The count ran 672 in 2015, 438 of them in Asia, 582 in 2016 and 163 in 2017, by Benchmark's 2017 annual report, and 490 in 2018 and 468 in 2019, executed and planned, by its 2020 report.

What to do if you're laid off from Benchmark Electronics

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Benchmark Electronics's biggest hubs: Arizona, California, Texas. 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 Benchmark Electronics's hub states run: Arizona, California, Texas, 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.