Laid off from Ross Stores.

What Ross Stores layoffs have meant for employees

Ross's April 2 release set out more than the furlough itself. It tied the furlough's length to operations resuming in each area and said furloughed associates would be eligible to apply for unemployment benefits in the interim. The release also announced salary cuts, with no salary for the chairman and the chief executive, substantial cuts for senior executives and smaller reductions cascading down to associates through a certain level. Beyond those cuts, nothing in the filings or reporting we track describes a layoff of Ross's buying-office or corporate staff. If a closure ever pauses your hours at Ross instead of ending your job, those 2020 terms are a fair yardstick for your own, whether you stay an employee, whether your health coverage and its premiums carry on, and whether an unemployment claim is open to you while you wait.

Coming back happened in phases. Stores began reopening May 14 and every distribution center had reopened by the end of May, executives said on the August 2020 earnings call, though stores were running shorter hours than a year earlier. Temporary layoffs didn't end everywhere with the restart, since Ross's own El Centro notice followed in late July. On the same call, operations chief Michael Hartshorn said Ross saw good retention among the permanent distribution center workforce returning from furlough, while a fast-rising warehouse labor market left the centers short of staff.

At the warehouses in 2024, the notices said permanent while the work, by DMSI's account, was meant to carry on. California's 2024-25 WARN report recorded all six of DMSI's notices as permanent layoffs, yet DMSI's own filing, as FreightWaves quoted it, anticipated the same workers being assigned to their current positions on the new agency's payroll. The change was Ross replacing DMSI with Adecco, which Sourcing Journal based on an anonymous Instagram post and an Adecco Facebook post that linked to Ross warehouse openings. If you were one of those workers and moved over to the new agency, the dates worth having in writing are your last day on DMSI's payroll and your first on the next one, along with anything that changed between them, your pay rate, your schedule or the seniority you'd built.

Ross's warehouse floors have mixed its own staff with agency crews. Hartshorn said on that 2020 call that the distribution centers run on temporary as well as permanent labor, Ross's fiscal 2025 10-K says it hires temporary associates especially in peak seasons, and in California the agency crews were DMSI's until the 2024 switch. Ross counts the temporary workers it hires directly as associates, while the workers on the six 2024 notices were DMSI's own employees, and California's report lists those notices under DMSI's name rather than Ross's. If you work at a Ross center or are weighing a job at one, it's useful to know which employer is on your paperwork, since California's 2024 notices for the agency crews at Ross's centers carried the agency's name.

Ross's warehouse network was growing even as the DMSI notices went out. The company counted eight distribution centers then, Sourcing Journal reported, with one in Buckeye, Arizona built but not yet open and a ninth under construction in Randleman, North Carolina. To place a notice at a particular building, California's report gives each one a street address and a count, which is how DMSI's six line up with Ross's Moreno Valley, Perris and Shafter centers. Those six and both of Ross's own notices in our WARN filings tracker were filed in California, and the state's rules on claims are laid out at California unemployment benefits.

A sourced history of Ross Stores layoffs

• November 2024, DMSI notices at Ross's California warehouses

  DMSI, the agency staffing Ross's California distribution centers, filed notices that California's WARN report lists as permanent layoffs of 1,643 workers in Moreno Valley, Perris and Shafter. Its filing, as FreightWaves quoted it, said they would move to Adecco's payroll.

• April 2020, Ross furloughs most store and warehouse staff

  Ross said in an April 2 release it would furlough the majority of its store and distribution center associates from April 5, keeping them as Ross associates and paying the employee share of health premiums for those enrolled.

• March 2020, all Ross and dd's DISCOUNTS stores closed

  Ross closed all its Ross and dd's DISCOUNTS stores from March 20 through a planned April 3 and provided up to two weeks of continued pay to full-time and hourly associates who couldn't work, its March 20 release said.

What to do if you're laid off from Ross Stores

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Ross Stores'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 Ross Stores'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.