Laid off from Illumina.

What Illumina layoffs have meant for employees

Illumina has called one round limited not long before a larger one. In February 2025 a spokesperson told MedTech Dive that the headquarters layoffs disclosed that month weren't part of a broad-based reduction, adding that the company had created new roles while reducing others. If your role is among those being cut, that pairing is a reason to weigh an internal move, where one is offered, alongside any package. Two months after that statement a bigger cut came under the cost program announced the month before, GenomeWeb reported, and from November a run of small California notices, all but one for fewer than ten jobs, continued into January 2026 in our WARN tracker.

The 2023 round reached well beyond California. According to STAT's reporting, which MedTech Dive's June 2023 report summarized, it touched sites in Wisconsin, Singapore and the United Kingdom as well as San Diego and Foster City, where Illumina planned to stop lab-based work, and it came weeks after chief executive Francis deSouza resigned in the wake of a proxy battle with activist investor Carl Icahn. STAT also reported that everyone affected had been told and that more layoffs were planned. At Foster City, where Illumina also planned in 2023 to leave part of the campus, the restructuring note in its 2025 10-K tied impairment charges to the site in both 2023 and 2024. The rounds MedTech Dive covered after that, in 2024 and 2025, were at the San Diego headquarters.

The scale shows up in the filings as totals. The same 10-K counts employee separation costs of $48 million in 2023, $12 million in 2024 and $47 million in 2025, two heavy years around a lighter one, and company-wide sums like those can't tell anyone what a single package held. If you're offered a package, there's more on weighing it at negotiating severance, and on health coverage after a job ends at how COBRA works. Full-time headcount shrank as well. Citing Illumina's annual reports, MedTech Dive put full-time employees at about 9,250 late in 2023 and, with GRAIL excluded, about 8,970 at the end of 2024. Those are net counts that take in hiring as well as departures, so they measure the company's size rather than tally its layoffs.

In 2011 and again in 2025, Illumina tied cuts to uncertainty over government research money. The 2011 reduction of about 8% was made in view of uncertainty in academic and government research funding and the global economy, Illumina's October 2011 8-K says, and the 10-K says the 2025 initiative, which included workforce reductions, was meant to help offset an expected drop in revenue from its Greater China business and uncertainty over federal funding of the National Institutes of Health. In between, the 2022 cut followed a lowered revenue forecast amid inflation, delays to large research projects and slower instrument purchases, according to MedTech Dive's November 2022 report, and Illumina's June 2023 8-K placed the 2023 reduction inside a multiyear plan to realign operating expenses, a plan the 10-K says also consolidated facilities.

A California notice filed in April 2025 under the Worldwide Headquarters name set its layoffs for June 16, two months after it was dated. If a notice names a date for your group, that's the date Illumina gave the state for those layoffs, and it's worth holding the timing in any offer up against it. GRAIL, which Illumina spun off in June 2024, filed a California notice of its own that August. For an unemployment claim, California's rules are on California unemployment benefits and every other state's on unemployment benefits by state.

A sourced history of Illumina layoffs

• April 2025, more than 300 jobs under a cost program

  Illumina laid off more than 300 people, about 3.5% of its workforce, a step a spokesperson told GenomeWeb was in line with its $100 million cost reduction program.

• February 2025, 96 jobs at the San Diego headquarters

  Illumina told 96 people at its San Diego headquarters by February 12 that their layoffs would take effect between April and August, MedTech Dive reported, in jobs ranging from managers and scientists to analysts and technicians.

• October 2024 and January 2025, 49 headquarters terminations

  Illumina ended 49 jobs at its headquarters, MedTech Dive reported, on October 1, 2024, and January 24, 2025.

• January 2024, 111 headquarters jobs

  A California notice put Illumina's January cuts at 111 employees at its San Diego headquarters, among them senior managers, scientists and engineers, according to MedTech Dive, and chief executive Jacob Thaysen tied the reductions to a plan to raise productivity and save costs.

• June 2023, headcount reduction and San Diego campus exit

  Under a multiyear plan to realign its expenses, Illumina began a headcount reduction on June 21, with further cuts expected in the third quarter and a pledge to trim yearly run-rate spending by more than $100 million, its June 2023 8-K says, and the next day it chose to leave its i3 campus in San Diego.

• November 2022, 5% of the global workforce

  Illumina was reducing its global workforce by 5% amid a challenging macroeconomic environment, MedTech Dive reported, and expected a fourth-quarter restructuring charge that would include the cost of optimizing its facilities.

• October 2011, about 200 jobs in a restructuring

  Illumina announced plans to cut about 200 employees, roughly 8% of its global workforce, in an October 2011 8-K that put the expected charge at $15 million to $17 million, mostly compensation and benefits for those let go.

What to do if you're laid off from Illumina

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