Laid off from Graphic Packaging.

What Graphic Packaging layoffs have meant for employees

If you're timing a move or a new job around a Graphic Packaging closing date, it's safer to treat the date as an estimate. Middletown's exact closing date would depend upon multiple business plan factors, its letter to Ohio said. Tama closed earlier than the company had anticipated because K2 had produced better than expected, Michael Doss, then chief executive, told investors in 2023, and he called Tama its recycled paperboard mill with the smallest capacity and highest cash production cost per ton, the Times-Republican reported. Tama's workers heard their date at a May 2 meeting, their union president told KCRG, with the mill to close as of June 2, and many of them had more than two decades of service, the station said. The Middletown and East Angus closings went with finishing the Waco, Texas, mill, and the decision to retire a Kalamazoo machine fell under a network plan begun in 2019, according to the company's 2025 10-K.

At two of the closings on record, Middletown and Wyoming, Michigan, Graphic Packaging notified the union along with the state. USW Local 1973 was notified at Middletown, the letter says, and the union for hourly workers at Wyoming was told too, according to Packaging Dive, which reported that non-union staff there had no bumping rights. At Middletown, bumping depended on the bargaining agreement's seniority provisions, so if you're hourly under a union contract at a site that's closing, it's worth keeping your own record of your seniority. People let go at Middletown can find Ohio's claim rules on Ohio unemployment benefits.

Retention bonuses and incentives were among the charges Graphic Packaging booked for closing the Middletown and East Angus mills, alongside post-employment benefits, as the 10-K's exit-activities note lays out. If you're offered a retention bonus to stay through a closing, the date it pays is worth setting beside the start date of any job you're weighing. Placement help was part of the December 2025 cost plan, with the company saying in its December 2025 release that it was working to provide employment placement assistance and support to affected employees. Outplacement services came with the Tama closing, the station reported, and with the January 2024 closings, according to Packaging Dive.

Some closings came soon after Graphic Packaging took over the site. Tama closed within months of its purchase, and Altivity Packaging, which joined Graphic Packaging in a March 2008 stock combination, filed a closing notice for a St. Charles, Illinois plant that October, as our WARN tracker shows. If your site came to the company through an acquisition, those two cases show how soon it has closed a site after taking one over.

The 2026 cut fell on a different group, which the company's May 5 release described as primarily salaried positions. Human resources and other corporate roles at the Atlanta headquarters, along with operations jobs in Louisiana, were among those cut, according to departing employees' posts that Packaging Dive relayed and that are unverified, and some posters said they resigned after being told the restructuring would require relocating. Rietbroek had said on his first earnings call as chief executive, in February, that the company needed to rightsize its cost structure for the realities of the current macroeconomic environment. No state had posted a WARN notice tied to those layoffs by April 16, the outlet reported. For anyone whose job was at the Atlanta headquarters, there's Georgia unemployment benefits.

If you're looking for an older site's notice in our tracker, it may be filed as Riverwood International, the name its subsidiary Graphic Packaging International carried in the 1990s. Of the 20 filings there, 14 are marked as closings. Anyone let go at the 2023 Auburn, Indiana closing or the 2024 North Carolina sites can turn to the Indiana and North Carolina unemployment pages.

A sourced history of Graphic Packaging layoffs

• August 2026, Graphic Packaging plans Lebanon, Tennessee closing

  Graphic Packaging planned to close its Lebanon facility and consolidate that work across fewer sites, its second-quarter release said, calling it part of the company's footprint optimization.

• April 2026, Graphic Packaging restructuring layoffs

  Departing employees posted, unverified, that layoffs had reached Georgia, Louisiana and Michigan, including corporate jobs at the Atlanta headquarters, Packaging Dive reported in mid-April. In all the reduction reached over 500 roles, primarily salaried, counting vacant roles eliminated along with employee separations, as the company's May 5 release put it.

• December 2025, Graphic Packaging closes East Angus, Quebec mill

  Graphic Packaging shut the East Angus mill in December, its 2025 10-K notes, consolidating production into fewer, more efficient locations once its new Waco, Texas, mill was running. The closing affected 120 employees, by Packaging Dive's count.

• December 2025, Graphic Packaging announces staffing and cost cuts

  Graphic Packaging expected a review of support functions to bring about $60 million in staffing and other savings in 2026, with severance and other one-time costs near $20 million and placement help for affected employees, its December 8 release said.

• April 2025, Graphic Packaging notifies Ohio of Middletown mill closing

  The Middletown mill would close on or about May 31, affecting about 136 people, Graphic Packaging told Ohio in an April 1 letter, with first separations expected June 2 to June 16 and wages and benefits in lieu for anyone who got less than the required notice.

• May 2024, Graphic Packaging Randleman, North Carolina closing notice

  Graphic Packaging gave North Carolina a May 9 notice that it would close its Randleman site, affecting 65 workers, effective July 23, the state's 2024 WARN report shows.

• January 2024, Graphic Packaging plans three plant closings

  Graphic Packaging gave notice of closing plants in Charlotte, North Carolina (112 jobs), Wyoming, Michigan (111), and Lowell, Massachusetts (71), Packaging Dive reported, and a spokesperson called consolidating their production into its other plants “the most viable outcome.”

• May 2023, Graphic Packaging announces Tama mill closing

  The Tama mill, bought that February, was closing because of modernization elsewhere in Graphic Packaging's recycled paperboard network, the company told KCRG. More than 80 people lost jobs and were to get two to 16 weeks of severance, the station reported, plus outplacement.

What to do if you're laid off from Graphic Packaging

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Graphic Packaging's biggest hubs: Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio. 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 Graphic Packaging's hub states run: Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, 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.