Laid off from Caterpillar.

Previous rounds

Caterpillar layoff history

Seeing your plant's address on a WARN list is a gut punch. In Wamego, Kansas, the state's listing shows a Caterpillar notice dated November 12, 2024 for 300 employees at 400 Work Tools Drive, a plant Caterpillar had said in June 2024 it would close sometime in mid-summer 2025, with the building listed for sale at $11.5 million. Then on May 21, 2025, a company spokesperson told KMAN that Solar Turbines, a Caterpillar subsidiary, would take ownership of the facility and continue manufacturing there with the existing workforce.

Our WARN tracker holds 58 Caterpillar filings across all years, 0 filings covering 0 jobs since the start of 2025, and nothing for 2026. What's on record since then is money in SEC filings. Employee separation costs came to $106 million in 2025, up from $64 million in 2024, and $69 million from January through June 2026, against $27 million in the same months of 2025. The 2026 figure sits beside $139 million of divestiture costs, and the company tied its restructuring costs for the six months ended June 30, 2026 to actions across the company, including the divestiture of certain non-U.S. entities. Neither note names a plant, a country or a headcount. The Labor Department's WARN summary puts the federal notice duty on employers with at least 100 employees, generally not counting workers with under six months in the last 12 months or those averaging under 20 hours a week, and calls for at least 60 calendar days' advance written notice of a closing or mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site. Dollar totals can't show whether any one plant got there.

Two other 2024 notices sit in state records. South Carolina's report shows Caterpillar gave notice on June 7, 2024 of a permanent closure affecting 109 workers at its hydraulic cylinder plant at 650 Jefferson Road in Sumter, with layoffs scheduled from August 9 to September 30. When it announced that closing in May 2023, Caterpillar put the plant at 150 workers, said it would consolidate the work into other existing facilities, and had a spokesperson say, "We will do our best to redeploy affected employees. Otherwise we are offering severance packages." No amounts came with that. In Illinois, WARNTracker's copy of the state's data lists a Caterpillar notice for 60 workers at 325 S. Route 31 in Montgomery, dated November 26, 2024, with a January 31, 2025 layoff date.

Caterpillar did put numbers of people on a plan in September 2015. On September 22 of that year it committed to a restructuring plan it expected to cut about 4,000 to 5,000 salaried and management jobs, agency workers included, by the end of 2016, with a total possible workforce reduction of more than 10,000 people and contemplated plant consolidations and closures through 2018. It expected about $2 billion in pre-tax costs, about $1.1 billion of that in cash for employee-related costs, and about $1.5 billion a year in lower operating costs once the plan was fully in place. In StockAnalysis's compilation of Caterpillar's annual reports, year-end headcount went from 105,700 in 2015 to 95,400 in 2016, and was 118,000 on December 31, 2025, up from 112,900 a year earlier.

If you're weighing an offer, the published terms are thin. The one per-person severance formula on record is Canadian. After Electro-Motive Diesel, part of Caterpillar's Progress Rail, locked out workers at its London, Ontario locomotive plant and then announced the closing, the union ratified a closure agreement in February 2012 giving three weeks of pay for every year worked, plus a C$1,500 lump sum, according to a union federation's account. Neither that agreement nor the Sumter statement shows what Caterpillar is offering in your case, so read the offer itself beside our page on negotiating a severance agreement before you sign. If the WARN thresholds above fit your site, the Labor Department's summary says notice also goes to employees' representatives, the local chief elected official and the state dislocated worker unit, with exceptions for unforeseeable business circumstances, faltering companies and natural disasters. The unemployment pages for Illinois, Kansas and South Carolina take it from there.

Reporting on previous Caterpillar layoff rounds

• January to June 2026, company-wide · $69 million of employee separation costs plus $139 million of divestiture costs, with no positions or sites given

• 2025, company-wide · $106 million of employee separation costs, in a year whose restructuring also covered Rail division inventory write-downs

• November 2024, Montgomery, Illinois · 60 workers at 325 S. Route 31, with a January 31, 2025 layoff date

• November 2024, Wamego, Kansas · 300 employees on the state notice for a plant set to close sometime in mid-summer 2025, until Caterpillar said in May 2025 that Solar Turbines would take it over with the existing workforce

• 2024, Sumter, South Carolina hydraulics plant closing · 109 workers on a permanent-closure notice with layoffs set for August 9 to September 30, 2024, after Caterpillar put the plant at 150 workers in May 2023

  Caterpillar said it would try to redeploy people and otherwise offer severance packages, with no amounts given.

• September 2015, company-wide restructuring plan · About 4,000 to 5,000 salaried and management jobs by the end of 2016 and a possible total of more than 10,000 through 2018, with plant closures contemplated

  About $1.1 billion of expected cash for employee-related costs; per-person terms not published.

• 2012, Electro-Motive Diesel, London, Ontario · 465 union jobs at the locomotive plant, by a union federation's count

  Three weeks of pay for each year worked and a C$1,500 lump sum under the ratified closure agreement, as the union reported it.

What to do after being laid off from Caterpillar

1. File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Caterpillar's biggest hubs: Illinois, Kansas, South Carolina. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
2. 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 Caterpillar's hub states run: Illinois, Kansas, South Carolina, and every other state is here.
3. 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.
4. Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
5. 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.