Laid off from Bristol Myers Squibb.
Bristol Myers Squibb hasn't cut in one loud round. It posts mid-size notices at the same Lawrence Township address again and again, and one notice can spread separations across fourteen dates and most of a year, so your last day can land nowhere near the day the notice went up.
At a glance
What's known about Bristol Myers Squibb severance and layoffs
- 10, covering 2,037 jobs · WARN filings since 2025, our tracker
- 40 · All-time filings, our tracker
- 3, covering 563 jobs · 2026 filings so far, our tracker
- 516 jobs, Lawrence Township · Largest single notice, posted May 2025
- Fourteen, May 2025 to March 2026 · Separation dates on that one notice
- One week per full year of service · New Jersey statutory severance
- None on record · Company severance terms
- About 32,500, from 34,100 a year earlier · Employees company-wide, end of 2025
Recent Bristol Myers Squibb layoffs
Bristol Myers Squibb's April 2026 notice covers 206 more New Jersey jobs
New Jersey's 2026 archive lists a Bristol Myers Squibb notice posted in April 2026 covering 206 workers at Lawrence Township, with separations running from July 16 to December 31, 2026. A February notice covering 247 workers lists its own separation dates through December 31, 2026. Our tracker holds 3 filings covering 563 jobs in 2026, all in New Jersey.
Previous rounds
Bristol Myers Squibb layoff history
Bristol Myers Squibb doesn't lay people off in one loud round. Our tracker holds 40 all-time filings for the company, and 10 covering 2,037 jobs since the start of 2025, and the five largest of those name the same place, Lawrence Township, New Jersey, where the company keeps its corporate headquarters and a 650,000-square-foot building for its commercial and research and development teams. Three filings landed in 2026 alone, covering 563 jobs. A steady drumbeat is harder to see from outside than one mass closing, and it puts the people cut in a notice's ninth month on the same document as the people cut in its first.
The gap between when a notice goes up and when it reaches you is the part worth understanding here. New Jersey publishes every filing with the month it was posted and each date on which separations take effect, and this company's notices carry a lot of dates. The one posted in May 2025 covering 516 workers lists fourteen separate effective dates, the first on May 9, 2025 and the last on March 27, 2026. The September 2025 notice covering 282 workers runs from December 11, 2025 into late March 2026. So the round that hit the news months before your last day may well have been yours.
The company's filings put numbers on the program that the layoff notices leave out. Bristol Myers Squibb announced its fourth quarter 2024 results on February 6, 2025 under a heading saying it expands its Strategic Productivity Initiative to deliver about $2 billion in additional cost savings by the end of 2027, and its quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2026 repeats that target and folds the exit costs into its updated 2023 restructuring plan. That plan is expected to run about $2.5 billion in total charges through 2027, $1.8 billion of it already incurred. Employee termination costs under it came to $548 million in 2025 against $623 million in 2024, and across the first half of 2026 they fell to $46 million from $352 million a year earlier, with cash payments of $221 million. BioSpace reported an earlier April 2024 announcement setting about 2,200 jobs against roughly $1.5 billion in savings.
Over the same stretch the reported headcount came down. The company put its workforce at about 34,100 employees in 43 countries at the end of 2024 and about 32,500 at the end of 2025, a drop of roughly 1,600 by subtraction across the two annual reports. That figure moves with hiring, attrition and divestitures too, so it isn't a layoff count, but it's the company's own measure of how much smaller it got in a year. On severance its side of the record is thin. No terms are on record for any of these rounds, and the company didn't say which positions or locations the February 2026 cuts would touch.
What fills that gap is where the filings are. For a separation its WARN law covers, New Jersey requires an employer to pay one week of pay for each full year of employment, plus four more weeks if the employer gave less notice than the law demands, at the higher of that person's average regular compensation over their last three years or their final regular rate. The law calls that severance compensation due for back pay, earned in full the moment employment ends, and says you get either the statutory amount or whatever the employer provides for any other reason, whichever is greater. No waiver of the right works without approval from the state labor commissioner or a court, so a release can't quietly trade it away.
Your own notice is worth rereading, because the state requires it to carry more than the summary row it publishes. It has to give the date of each termination, the reasons, any employment available at the company's other establishments along with that job's pay and terms, your rights as to wages, severance, benefits and pension, and a disclosure of the amount of severance payable to you. Which state's rules reach you is a live question for some people, since a company representative said the February 2026 notice took in field employees who aren't in New Jersey but report to sites there. Not every round was a New Jersey round either, and NJBIZ reported an Illinois viral vector plant closing that downsized 133 positions plus 57 California layoffs in April 2025. What the company has filed, notice by notice, sits with the rest of our tracker. Start with your separation paperwork, go to your state agency next, and talk to an employment lawyer if the dates don't add up.
Reporting on previous Bristol Myers Squibb layoff rounds
April 2026, 206 jobs at Lawrence Township · A notice posted in April 2026 covering 206 workers, with separations running from July 16 to December 31, 2026
February 2026, 247 jobs at Lawrence Township · A notice posted in February 2026 covering 247 workers across seven effective dates from May 21 to December 31, 2026. A company representative said it took in some headquarters employees along with some field employees based outside New Jersey who report to sites in the state
Terms not published. A spokesperson said the company was aligning resources to support its operating model and portfolio evolution, and that supporting employees through the transition was a priority.
September and November 2025, 282 jobs and 110 jobs · Two notices, one posted in September 2025 covering 282 workers and one in November covering 110, their separation dates running together from December 11, 2025 into late March 2026
May 2025, 516 jobs, the largest single notice on record · A notice posted in May 2025 covering 516 workers at Lawrence Township, listing fourteen separate effective dates from May 9, 2025 to March 27, 2026
February and June 2025, 223 jobs and 68 jobs · A February notice covering 223 workers on four dates from May 22 to August 1, 2025, and a June notice covering 68 on four dates from September 25, 2025 to January 15, 2026
What to do after being laid off from Bristol Myers Squibb
- File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Bristol Myers Squibb's biggest hubs: New Jersey, California, Illinois. 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 Bristol Myers Squibb's hub states run: New Jersey, California, Illinois, 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.
Bristol Myers Squibb layoff and severance questions
Does Bristol Myers Squibb pay severance?
No severance terms of the company's own are on record for any of these rounds, from a document or an attributed report. If your separation is covered by New Jersey's WARN law, that law sets the floor instead, and it's an unusually strong one, at one week of pay for every full year of employment plus four more weeks if the notice fell short. Settle the coverage question first, though. A company representative said the February 2026 notice took in field employees based outside New Jersey, and if that's you, confirm which state's law reaches your separation before treating the New Jersey amount as your floor.
Why doesn't my Bristol Myers Squibb layoff date match the date on the notice?
Because one notice covers many separation dates. New Jersey publishes each filing with the month it went up and every date on which people actually leave. The notice posted in May 2025 covering 516 workers names fourteen effective dates, the first on May 9, 2025 and the last on March 27, 2026. Someone let go that winter sits on a filing from the previous spring, which is why the headline you remember may be about your own round.
How much notice does Bristol Myers Squibb have to give in New Jersey?
New Jersey requires an employer of 100 or more people to give at least 90 days before the first termination in a mass layoff, and to notify the state labor commissioner, the municipality, every affected employee and any bargaining units. Short notice doesn't cancel the severance requirement. It adds four weeks of pay to it.
What has to be in the WARN notice Bristol Myers Squibb sent me?
New Jersey sets the contents by statute, and they run well past the one-line summary the state publishes. Your notice has to give the date of each termination, the reasons, any employment available at the company's other establishments together with that job's pay and terms, your rights as to wages, severance pay, benefits and pension, and a disclosure of the amount of severance payable. If that figure is missing from your copy, raise it before you sign anything.
Can Bristol Myers Squibb ask me to sign away my New Jersey severance?
The statute says no waiver of that right is effective without approval from the state labor commissioner or a court. It also treats the severance as compensation due for back pay, earned in full the moment employment ends, and says you get either the statutory amount or whatever the employer provides for any other reason, whichever is greater. A release can still cover plenty of other ground, so have an employment lawyer read it first.
Where do I file for unemployment after being laid off from Bristol Myers Squibb?
In the state where you worked, not where the company is headquartered. Bristol Myers Squibb's biggest U.S. hubs are New Jersey, California, Illinois. Severance usually doesn't block you from filing, and benefits run from your filing date, so file the same week.
Is it OK to file for unemployment after a layoff at Bristol Myers Squibb?
Yes. Unemployment insurance is funded by payroll taxes employers pay on wages, the claim never appears on credit reports or background checks, and future employers cannot see it. If the hesitation itself is the obstacle, whether filing is OK has its own article.
What happens to my health insurance after a layoff at Bristol Myers Squibb?
Your plan sets the end date rather than the law, so the separation packet is where that date actually lives, and it is often the last day of the month rather than your last day of work. After coverage ends, COBRA lets you keep the identical plan by paying the whole premium yourself, up to 102 percent of what the plan really costs, which lands as several times the payroll deduction you were used to. You get 60 days to elect, counted from the later of coverage ending or the election notice arriving, and electing reaches the coverage back to the day the old plan stopped so no gap exists. How continuation coverage works walks the timing, and whether to take it rather than a marketplace plan is a separate decision.
Should I sign the severance agreement right away?
First pin down how much review time you actually have. If you're 40 or older, federal law gives you 21 days to consider an agreement that waives age claims, 45 in a group layoff, and a waiver signed under a shorter deadline can be invalid. If you're under 40, no federal window applies and the deadline in your packet may be real, so confirm it in writing and ask for more time if you need it. Use whatever window you have to read the release terms, especially non-disparagement and no-lawsuit clauses, and don't stall past a real deadline, because offers can be withdrawn.
Can I collect unemployment if I got severance from Bristol Myers Squibb?
Usually yes, though some states delay benefits until severance pay periods end, and lump sums are treated differently than salary continuation. Check your state's rules on our state benefit pages, and file immediately either way so your claim date is locked in.