Laid off from Illinois Tool Works.

What Illinois Tool Works layoffs have meant for employees

Illinois Tool Works reported 88 divisions in 49 countries in its 10-K for fiscal 2025, and its layoffs on record arrived under division names, Miller Electric, Hobart Welding Products and ITW Air Flow Management among them. If you're checking our WARN tracker for a notice at your site, it's worth searching under your division's name as well as ITW's. Being told your plant's work is going somewhere else in the company is hard, whatever you decide to do about it.

Some of these cuts sent the work to a sister ITW operation, and that can come with a place to go. When Hobart Welding Products set its Troy equipment move in 2016, people were to be offered similar roles in Appleton or could apply for open positions in local business units, WHIO reported. Westminster's business was being transferred to other ITW locations, the company said in a letter to town officials that the Worcester Business Journal described, and the town planner put the cut at under half the site's staff. If you're told your work is moving to another ITW site, it's worth asking whether there's a similar role for you there, what it would pay, and whether turning it down still leaves you in line for a package. If a move like Troy's to Appleton leaves you filing for unemployment, Ohio unemployment benefits and Wisconsin unemployment benefits cover the two states it spans.

Before its 2008 cuts, Miller Electric eliminated overtime and flex staffing and offered voluntary temporary layoffs in one-week stretches, with jobs guaranteed back and unemployment and health care benefits while people were off, Rental Equipment Register reported. If you're offered a voluntary temporary layoff, it's worth asking whether your job is guaranteed back and how your benefits work while you're out, and how COBRA works is a place to start if your health coverage would end. If you're offered a voluntary package instead, it's worth setting it beside what an involuntary cut would pay and reading up on negotiating severance before you answer.

How ITW classifies a departure has mattered for severance. In a 2019 Eleventh Circuit ruling, ITW had denied a fired general manager separation pay on the ground that his job wasn't eliminated, and the court found the plan administrator hadn't given his claim a full and fair review. If you're told your job is being eliminated, it's worth asking for that in writing, because the plan as the court described it tied eligibility in part to a permanent job elimination.

Restructuring is part of how ITW describes its own method. Its 80/20 initiatives "may also result in restructuring initiatives that reduce costs and improve profitability and returns," in the words of its 10-K. Higher restructuring expenses tied to 80/20 Front-to-Back projects, along with other one-time items, held down ITW's operating margin in the first quarter of 2025, its first-quarter results said in April 2025, and its second-quarter 2026 report gave restructuring costs as basis points of one segment's margin. The 10-K sorts ITW's brands into its segments, Hobart into Food Equipment, Miller into Welding, Paslode into Construction Products and Shakeproof into Automotive OEM. If you work for one of those brands, knowing its segment makes ITW's quarterly reports easier to read for restructuring in your part of the company.

If you're filing in Illinois, where the tracker holds the most ITW filings, there's more on Illinois unemployment benefits, and Georgia's rules are at Georgia unemployment benefits.

A sourced history of Illinois Tool Works layoffs

• April 2024, ITW Shakeproof Elk Grove Village closing notice

  ITW Shakeproof filed an Illinois notice dated April 3 to close its Elk Grove Village site, listing 66 jobs, the newest ITW filing in our WARN tracker.

• May 2023, ITW Drawform closes its Holland, Michigan plant

  ITW Drawform closed its Holland plant and reported 171 layoffs in a May 30 state filing after a customer shifted its business to another supplier, the Holland Sentinel reported from Crain's, adding that a spokesperson said Drawform would provide severance.

• April 2019, ITW Air Flow Management layoffs in Westminster, Massachusetts

  ITW Air Flow Management told Massachusetts on February 12 that it would lay off 52 people in April, according to the Worcester Business Journal, and told town officials the work was moving to other ITW locations.

• August 2016, ITW's Hobart Welding sets Troy equipment move

  Hobart Welding Products' equipment plant in Troy, Ohio was set to move its manufacturing and warehouse work to sister company Miller Electric in Appleton, Wisconsin, according to WHIO, and all 54 employees were given the chance to relocate with it.

• April 2016, ITW's Miller Electric lays off 76 in Appleton

  Miller Electric laid off 76 office and plant employees at its Appleton facility and notified the state, an Associated Press report said, with its group president citing lower demand in industries like oil and gas.

• 2014, ITW sets closing of Hobart's Richmond Hill, Georgia plant

  ITW told the 42 workers at Hobart's Richmond Hill kitchen supply plant it would close by year's end, saying an Ohio facility could take the product line, WTOC reported, and the unemployment office came to help with out-placement.

• November 2008, ITW's Miller Electric announces 95 job cuts

  Miller Electric announced plans to cut 95 jobs, most in the Appleton area, Rental Equipment Register reported, with plant layoffs set by seniority, voluntary separation packages on offer, and one week's pay for each year of service, with outplacement counseling, for everyone affected.

What to do if you're laid off from Illinois Tool Works

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Illinois Tool Works's biggest hubs: Illinois, Georgia, Kansas, California. 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 Illinois Tool Works's hub states run: Illinois, Georgia, Kansas, California, 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.