Laid off from Henkel.

What Henkel layoffs have meant for employees

The clearest thread in Henkel's US record is where the work went. Henkel's 2024 report says liquid detergent production left St. Louis for Bowling Green that year while a plant making input products stayed behind, and the 2025 report names Bowling Green among its largest production locations. A decade earlier, before Henkel owned the company, Sun Products chose the same city for Baltimore's production, saying it could no longer produce competitively there, The Daily Record reported. The St. Louis case needs care. That report's passage on the move doesn't mention job cuts, and the Springfield Business Journal item on the layoffs doesn't mention the move, so the year is all that connects them on the record. If your line moves to another Henkel plant, the receiving site is a natural place to check for any openings.

Oak Creek shows how a date in a Henkel letter can move. Both the April letter and the September 24 letter call their schedules anticipated, and the revision shows what that word can cover. For anyone on a schedule like this, the earliest date in writing is the cautious one to budget around, and our layoff budget calculator is one way to run those numbers. The tables list job titles, not names, and April's split mixing operators across two dates, so the title alone couldn't tell anyone which date was theirs. Both tables leave maintenance staff and the plant manager for last. Both letters rule out bumping rights, which means a longer-serving worker can't claim a more junior colleague's job as the plant winds down.

Henkel's largest figures don't describe any one site. The 2,000 positions in its consumer merger were a worldwide count, mostly sales and administration jobs. The second phase turned to production and logistics, and the 2024 report says it included closures in North America, with an annual savings target of around 250 million euros by 2026, around 150 million of it realized by the end of 2024. Henkel's own North American count fell from 8,250 at the end of 2021 to 7,250 at the end of 2025, with 600 of that drop in 2025, the year it sold its Retailer Brands business. That's a net figure, so it measures something wider than layoffs. The 2025 report also puts personnel-related restructuring expenses at 94 million euros worldwide that year, up from 90 million in 2024, a line that sizes the program and says little about a severance check.

Scottsdale is the case where the job left and the person had to decide whether to follow it. Buying Sun Products gave Henkel two consumer operations to combine, Henkel's statement put the combined facility in Stamford, Connecticut, and KJZZ, citing the Phoenix Business Journal, said Arizona employees would have a chance to relocate. If Henkel offers you a move to another site, it can make sense to weigh the cost of uprooting against what you'd receive for leaving, if anything.

Sun Products and Dial account for five of the nine notices on our WARN filings tracker, so anyone tracing an older site's history will find it under those names as well as Henkel's. Sun's three, for Baltimore, Pasadena, Texas, and Dyersburg, Tennessee, listed 300, 113 and 173 jobs in 2014 and 2015, so the company Henkel bought had already been through its own closings and cuts. People from the newest sites can start with the unemployment pages for Wisconsin, Missouri and California, the states those notices went to.

A sourced history of Henkel layoffs

• September 2026, Oak Creek closing dates revised

  Oak Creek's shutdown moved to about March 26, 2027, four days before its original September 28 date, Henkel's revised notice shows. Its table lists 1 person for September 28, where April's had 21, and 19 for March 26.

• April 2026, Oak Creek plant closing notice

  All Oak Creek employees would be affected, Henkel's April 30 letter said, with operations stopping around September 28 and the building closing around February 28, 2027. Its table scheduled 32 separations for June 30, 21 for September 28 and 4 for February 26, 2027.

• November 2025, Concord and Dixon, California, closure notices

  Two permanent Henkel Corporation closures noticed November 20 appear in California's WARN report, 13 jobs at 5110 Port Chicago Highway in Concord, effective January 30, 2026, and 7 at 405 Industrial Way in Dixon, effective April 30, 2026.

• February 2024, St. Louis layoff notice

  A notice to the state said 102 employees would be laid off at the North Riverfront facility where Henkel's consumer brands unit operates, the Springfield Business Journal reported.

• May 2022, consumer merger and 2,000 positions worldwide

  Henkel said merging its consumer units would affect around 2,000 positions globally, mainly in sales and administration. The aim was reassignment where possible and outplacement otherwise, Henkel's 2022 report says, and agreements covering that number were concluded by year-end 2023, its 2024 report adds.

• October 2016, Scottsdale-to-Stamford move announced

  Scottsdale's operations would move to Stamford, Connecticut, to combine with newly acquired Sun Products, Henkel's statement said, finishing by the first quarter of 2018. That would cost 375 Arizona jobs, KJZZ reported, adding a Phoenix Business Journal report of a chance to relocate.

• February 2014, Sun Products announces Baltimore plant closing

  Sun Products said it would close its Holabird Avenue plant in June, leaving 300 employees out of a job, move production to Bowling Green, Kentucky, and offer severance pay and job-search help, The Daily Record reported. Henkel bought Sun in 2016.

What to do if you're laid off from Henkel

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