Laid off from Regal Rexnord.

What Regal Rexnord layoffs have meant for employees

For Cudahy, West Milwaukee and the Kentucky plants, the reasons on record concerned the company's sites. Cudahy's closing followed a global review of the company's locations while it integrated numerous businesses, according to Regal Rexnord's statement in a July 2025 BizTimes report. At West Milwaukee, the union told BizTimes that the company cited an aging building that needed a new boiler and a new roof. Regal Beloit said in 2014 that consolidating its Kentucky operations would help it stay globally competitive, and its 2014 release added that the decision wasn't a reflection on its employees' efforts. If you're explaining one of these job losses to an interviewer, a closing the company tied to its own network of plants is a short, plain answer. There's more on putting it into words in explaining a layoff.

Both of Regal Rexnord's Wisconsin closing letters since 2023, its September 2023 letter for West Milwaukee and its March 2026 letter for Cudahy, split the separations into two waves less than a month apart, and Cudahy's closing date came nearly a year after the company announced it. At Grafton in 2020, the employee who spoke to Ozaukee Press described layoffs running monthly from May to year's end. If your letter could put you in either wave, it can make sense to plan around the earlier date while you weigh another job, a move or a course. There's more on paying for new skills in retraining after a layoff.

Regal's plants turn up again and again in federal trade records. Between 2009 and 2022, 17 petitions for Regal Beloit and Regal Rexnord worker groups ended in certification for trade adjustment assistance, the most recent at Monticello, Indiana, according to the Labor Department's petition records, under a program WFYI described as help for workers who lose their jobs because of foreign trade. Six of those groups were in Missouri, three in Indiana and two each in Tennessee and Kentucky, with one each in Arkansas, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. Taken together, the certifications record trade-linked job losses at Regal sites in eight states over more than a decade, under both the Regal Beloit and Regal Rexnord names.

A Regal Rexnord plant's WARN notice can carry the name of whoever ran the plant when it was filed, Regal Beloit or Rexnord before 2021 and a unit's own name, Warner Electric for one, at businesses Regal bought, as filings in our WARN tracker show. The rules for a claim are on Texas unemployment benefits for work in Texas, Indiana unemployment benefits for Indiana and Wisconsin unemployment benefits for Wisconsin, three states where its plants have filed notices.

At West Milwaukee the people losing jobs also had their union working on the next one. The Steelworkers teamed with the nonprofit WRTP/Big Step to steer laid-off workers toward nearby union jobs, and the union's representative expressed confidence to BizTimes that everyone could land at another USW facility in the area. If you're in a union at a Regal Rexnord plant that's closing, a local's job connections like these can run alongside any placement help the company offers, and if a job at another Regal plant comes up for you, the drive and the shift are worth pricing out before you say yes.

The severance numbers in Regal Rexnord's 10-K for 2025 are company-wide accounting totals, added up across all its restructuring projects in a year rather than set out worker by worker. The company's restructuring costs include employee termination and plant relocation costs, the filing says, and in 2025 they came to $26.3 million, $17.7 million of it severance expense.

A sourced history of Regal Rexnord layoffs

• July 2025, Cudahy, Wisconsin Stearns brake plant closing

  Regal Rexnord said it would close the Stearns brake plant in 2026's second quarter after reviewing its locations worldwide while integrating numerous businesses, according to BizTimes, and that placement services would be available.

• September 2023, West Milwaukee industrial chain plant closing

  The plant was set to close on November 15, ending all 54 employees' jobs in two waves with no bumping rights, per Regal Rexnord's September 13, 2023 letter, and the union told BizTimes its work was going to a Regal Rexnord plant in Mexico.

• September 2020, Valparaiso, Indiana bearing plant closing notice

  Regal Beloit's notice for the former McGill Manufacturing plant listed 63 jobs ending by May 31, 2021, per our WARN tracker. The Machinists' members approved an effects agreement covering severance and benefits, according to Inside Indiana Business.

• January 2020, Grafton, Wisconsin FlatTop conveyor plant closing

  Company officials announced on January 17 that the plant would close and move to Mexico by year's end, a FlatTop employee told Ozaukee Press, adding that workers were training their replacements with interpreters; the March notice covered 140 jobs, per our WARN tracker.

• December 2016, Rexnord's Indianapolis bearings plant closing notice

  Rexnord, whose motion control business joined Regal in 2021, filed a 350-job notice for the plant, per our WARN tracker, while relocating about 300 jobs to Mexico, and the Steelworkers negotiated a severance package, according to WFYI.

• June 2014, Mount Sterling and Winchester, Kentucky plant closings

  Regal Beloit told about 200 employees it would close both plants and move their work to other Regal and non-Regal facilities, its June 5, 2014 release said, and the Labor Department certified both worker groups for trade adjustment assistance that August.

What to do if you're laid off from Regal Rexnord

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