Laid off from HNI Corporation.

What HNI Corporation layoffs have meant for employees

HNI's announcements and the state notices filed for the same plants haven't counted the same number of jobs. Its Hickory release came in below the North Carolina notice that our WARN tracker shows, and its Wayland release came in above the New York one. If one of those notices reached you, it's worth keeping alongside the announcement, since the two disagree on how many people were affected.

Both recent closings were announced well ahead of the end. HNI was announcing Hickory “several months in advance,” its chief executive said in the May 2024 release, and in January 2026 its chief operating officer said the Wayland exit was being announced “a year in advance.” At Hickory, though, the first layoffs were set to begin October 13, 2024, according to the state WARN letter Manufacturing Dive cited, well ahead of the plant's planned closing by April 2025. At Orleans in 2016, HNI planned to phase manufacturing out from January, with some departments leaving early in the year and others not until the next fall, Contract Furnishings News reported, and the notice to Indiana said the campus would close permanently by the end of the next October, according to the Indianapolis Business Journal. If you're offered an incentive to stay until a planned closing, as Go Foothills reported Hickory workers were, it's worth knowing whether leaving before that date changes the payment, especially if another job comes up first.

HNI has tied both recent moves partly to buying Kimball International. The May 2024 release said shifting Hickory's production was “partially enabled” by integrating Kimball, which HNI bought in June 2023, and the January 2026 release used the same words for Wayland. The Wayland plant held machinery nearly as old as the company and had become too costly for HNI to run, officeinsight wrote in a story the Wellsville Sun reposted, while Kimball's more modern woodworking equipment and central Midwest location helped make the closing possible. HNI had owned the Gunlocke brand since 1989. Kimball brought eight U.S. plants, six in Indiana and two in Kentucky, by Manufacturing Dive's account of a 2023 filing, and HNI’s Kimball completion release said Kimball would stay based in Jasper, Indiana.

At Hickory and Orleans, HNI planned to keep some work in the area while moving production out. At Hickory, HBF's brand headquarters and its marketing, customer experience, product development and engineering staff were to remain, about 25 people by Go Foothills' count, and at Orleans, administration, sales and marketing were to stay in southern Indiana, though likely not at the plant. Wayland's statement was about the wider company, with HNI saying “job opportunities in other areas of the organization may also be available.” If HNI offers you work at one of its other sites, the commute or a relocation, and the pay, are what's worth weighing against a search outside the company.

Weeks after its Steelcase purchase closed, HNI said the Wayland decision didn't affect its other brands, and it spoke of itself as including Steelcase and Kimball International. If you work at Steelcase or Kimball, that remark was about the Wayland decision alone.

Older rows in our tracker were filed by The HON Company, Hon Allsteel and Hearth & Home Technologies, among others. They include The HON Company's 2014 closing notice in Florence, Alabama, and two Hearth & Home Technologies closings, a 2016 notice for Bourbon County, Kentucky, and a Colville, Washington, row dated to its 2017 layoff. We keep separate pages on unemployment benefits in New York, North Carolina, Indiana and Kentucky, four of the states these filings went to.

A sourced history of HNI Corporation layoffs

• January 2026, Wayland, N.Y., plant exit announced

  HNI said in a January 8 release it would leave its Gunlocke plant in Wayland in 2027 and move production to other plants, with about 135 employment terminations and, by officeinsight's account in the Wellsville Sun, separation pay.

• May 2024, Hickory, N.C., plant closing announced

  HNI said in a May 20 release it would close its Hickory plant in the first half of 2025, affecting about 200 production and operations workers. Layoffs of 221 were to begin October 13, with incentives for staying to the planned closing, Go Foothills reported.

• October 2016, Orleans, Ind., Paoli plant closing approved

  HNI approved closing its Paoli plant in Orleans on October 7, affecting about 350 employees, and said it would phase out production from January and offer severance packages, Contract Furnishings News reported.

What to do if you're laid off from HNI Corporation

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