Laid off from Howmet Aerospace.

What Howmet Aerospace layoffs have meant for employees

Howmet's own counts make 2020 the outlier. Its 2020 programs covered about five times as many people as every program from 2021 through 2025 combined, by our arithmetic on the company's 2022 Form 10-K and 2025 Form 10-K, and 2022 booked no layoff costs at all. Where the later cuts fell has shifted, too. Engine Products, which runs the castings plants at Whitehall, La Porte and Wichita Falls and the two California ring plants on the 2025 Form 10-K's facility list, accounted for 1,706 of the 2020 layoff-program separations and 75 since, all in 2021's programs, while fasteners and structures accounted for most of the rest. If you're placing your own cut, a 2020 separation was one of thousands across every part of the company, and one from 2021 through 2025 came from a smaller program aimed at particular businesses.

In 2020 Howmet cut through furloughs, temporary layoffs, attrition and voluntary retirement alongside outright layoffs, local reports in The Vindicator and on KAUZ show, and the first label didn't always decide how a job ended. Pending reductions were being bridged with targeted furloughs, co-CEO Tolga Oal told investors on the February 2021 earnings call, and chairman John Plant said no one had been brought back from furlough yet. If your layoff is labeled temporary, keeping a copy of whatever says so can help if the label later changes, as the company's state filing expected for Whitehall's temporary layoffs.

Where a union contract applied, it shaped how the cuts were made. Whitehall's let workers volunteer for those temporary layoffs. At Niles, the Steelworkers local's president told The Vindicator that contract language had kept Howmet from moving melt-shop work to Michigan and Canton after it raised a shutdown the previous November. The deal that kept the shop open gave Howmet room to contract out work, and he expected laid-off members to be called back once aerospace recovered. The 2025 filing names Whitehall's contract Howmet's largest in the U.S., covering about 1,865 people through April 2028, up from about 1,000 in the 2020 Form 10-K. The next largest, about 730 people at Cleveland, runs to February 2029, and the next significant plant contract expires in 2027. Union contracts are also one of the three arrangements, with severance plans and statutory requirements, that Howmet's annual reports say its layoff benefits are paid under, and about a quarter of its U.S. workforce is union-represented. If your job falls under one of these contracts, whatever it says about layoffs and recall is worth reading next to any notice you get.

Howmet's programs can also take years to finish. Of the 253 people in its 2021 programs, 80 had been separated by the end of 2022, with the rest expected in 2023 and some final payouts in 2024. The 2024 programs were substantially complete as of the end of 2025, and of the 123 people in the 2025 programs, 114 had been separated by December 31. If you've been told your position is in one of these programs, the separation date you were given can land well after the year the filings book its cost.

For Whitehall, Niles and Wichita Falls, the 2020 cuts left no row in our WARN tracker, so the company's own counts and the local reporting are the fuller record for those plants. Where a notice did reach the tracker, the filer's name can be off, and a June 2020 notice from Fullerton, California, is spelled Homet Aerospace. For a benefits claim, each plant's state sets its own rules, with Michigan's for Whitehall, Ohio's for Niles, Texas's for Wichita Falls, Indiana's for La Porte and California's for the Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga and Fullerton plants.

A sourced history of Howmet Aerospace layoffs

• 2025, layoffs in fastening systems and forged wheels

  Howmet's 2025 layoff programs covered 123 employees, 79 in Fastening Systems and 44 in Forged Wheels, the 2025 Form 10-K reports.

• 2024, layoffs across three segments

  Fastening Systems held 282 of the 429 job separations in Howmet's 2024 programs, according to its 2025 Form 10-K, with 110 in Engineered Structures and 37 in Forged Wheels.

• 2023, Engineered Structures layoffs and small plant closings

  Under its 2023 programs Howmet separated 63 Engineered Structures employees and booked costs for closing small manufacturing plants, among them an Engineered Structures site in the U.K., as the 2025 Form 10-K records.

• 2021, layoffs and small U.S. plant closings

  Programs begun in 2021 included 253 employees, 171 of them in Engineered Structures, and part of the year's charges went to closing small U.S. plants in Engine Products and Fastening Systems, the 2022 Form 10-K shows.

• February 2021, Niles melt shop deal and layoffs

  A two-year deal with the Steelworkers kept the Niles plant's titanium melt shop open without changing pay or health care, The Vindicator reported, while about 50 layoffs, about 20 of them in the melt shop, were expected in early March.

• 2020, layoff programs in every segment

  Howmet's 2020 programs separated 4,301 employees, 1,706 in Engine Products, 1,675 in Fastening Systems, 805 in Engineered Structures, 92 in Forged Wheels and 23 at corporate, by the count in the 2022 Form 10-K, and it paid out $51 million in layoff costs that year.

• August to November 2020, La Porte plant layoffs

  Howmet permanently laid off 115 people at its La Porte, Indiana plant between Aug. 29 and Sept. 2, WNDU reported, and planned 150 more in two groups starting Oct. 1 and Nov. 4 after an unexpected cancellation of customer orders.

• April to August 2020, Wichita Falls layoffs

  After cutting 115 positions in April and 177 in June, Howmet set another round of Wichita Falls layoffs to start Aug. 31, KAUZ reported, affecting 65 of about 560 hourly and salaried positions through layoffs, attrition and voluntary retirement.

• July 2020, Niles plant to cut 131 positions

  Howmet planned to cut 131 hourly and salaried positions at its Niles, Ohio plant by July 31, almost a quarter of 600 workers, through attrition, voluntary retirement and layoffs, The Vindicator reported, and a spokesman tied the cut to weaker aerospace demand in the pandemic.

• 2020, layoffs at the Whitehall castings plants

  Howmet laid off 625 of nearly 3,000 workers at its Whitehall, Michigan castings plants, MLive reported in June, as relayed by The Vindicator; about half took voluntary temporary layoffs the union contract allowed, which the company's state filing called likely to become permanent.

What to do if you're laid off from Howmet Aerospace

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