Laid off from International Paper.

No amount and no formula appear on record. For the February 2025 closures the company said team members would receive outplacement assistance, access to mental health support resources and, where possible, severance benefits. Georgia got severance packages and outplacement assistance, and the June 2026 announcement said outplacement assistance, severance and benefits. The numbers that do exist are the company's own accounting, which charged $30 million of severance against Savannah, $18 million against Red River and $12 million against Riceboro in 2025. Those are site totals rather than individual amounts, and no individual figure appears on record. The written offer in front of you is the document that carries yours, and if you're represented your local can say which agreement governs it.

That depends on which agreement covers your site, and the public record won't settle it for you. The company reported 8,622 US employees represented by the United Steelworkers at the end of 2025, across five master agreements covering its mills and converting facilities, four of them with the USW. Those are company-wide counts, and nothing in the reporting we track establishes which agreement applied at any particular closing site. Your local is what can say which one covers you and what it provides. Georgetown is the site where the record gets specific, and there the local's president was notified in person the morning of the announcement, ahead of the town hall that told everyone else.

When Savannah and Riceboro were announced, the Technical College System of Georgia, WorkSource Georgia and the Georgia Department of Labor said they'd bring job placement, education and training, on-site transition centers, job fairs and access to unemployment benefits. TCSG's Brandon Ona said that coordination starts once a company files its WARN notice, so in those closures the filing rather than anyone's last shift is what started it. Other states run their own programs, and our Georgia and South Carolina pages carry the unemployment specifics for those two.

The company named four in late June 2026, a sheet plant in Aurora, Illinois, converting plants in Elk Grove, California and Barrington, New Jersey, and preprint operations at Richwood, Kentucky, a round it put at 330 employees. It's also closing the Georgetown, South Carolina container plant by year end, with 126 employees affected between May 1 and December 31. Our tracker holds four 2026 filings covering 484 jobs across four states.

It has varied by site, and Georgetown is the hard case on record. The company announced that closure on October 31, the same morning crews learned they'd lose their jobs, and a state senator said there had been no advance notice. Workers were told at a town hall they'd be paid through January 1. The Barrington filing reached New Jersey about three months ahead of its September 24, 2026 separation date. The WARN notice for your site lists the dates reported for it, and it's worth asking for a copy in writing.

In the state where you worked, not where the company is headquartered. International Paper's biggest U.S. hubs are Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, California. Severance usually doesn't block you from filing, and benefits run from your filing date, so file the same week.

Yes. Unemployment insurance is funded by payroll taxes employers pay on wages, the claim never appears on credit reports or background checks, and future employers cannot see it. If the hesitation itself is the obstacle, whether filing is OK has its own article.

Your plan sets the end date rather than the law, so the separation packet is where that date actually lives, and it is often the last day of the month rather than your last day of work. After coverage ends, COBRA lets you keep the identical plan by paying the whole premium yourself, up to 102 percent of what the plan really costs, which lands as several times the payroll deduction you were used to. You get 60 days to elect, counted from the later of coverage ending or the election notice arriving, and electing reaches the coverage back to the day the old plan stopped so no gap exists. How continuation coverage works walks the timing, and whether to take it rather than a marketplace plan is a separate decision.

First pin down how much review time you actually have. If you're 40 or older, federal law gives you 21 days to consider an agreement that waives age claims, 45 in a group layoff, and a waiver signed under a shorter deadline can be invalid. If you're under 40, no federal window applies and the deadline in your packet may be real, so confirm it in writing and ask for more time if you need it. Use whatever window you have to read the release terms, especially non-disparagement and no-lawsuit clauses, and don't stall past a real deadline, because offers can be withdrawn.

Usually yes, though some states delay benefits until severance pay periods end, and lump sums are treated differently than salary continuation. Check your state's rules on our state benefit pages, and file immediately either way so your claim date is locked in.