Laid off from True Value.

What True Value layoffs have meant for employees

A True Value notice dated October 2024 set out what the company said it might do if the Do it Best sale fell apart. Its statement to Illinois, as the Chicago Sun-Times reported it, described the notices as actions it might need to take if the sale didn't close, and its human resources chief wrote in a Missouri filing quoted by KSHB that keeping jobs and avoiding or postponing closings was the goal. For anyone on those notices, what followed depended on the sale. If the buyer hired you, the parties to the purchase agreement intended your employment to continue without a break, though the agreement guaranteed no one a job for any length of time.

After the sale, the company named on a notice depended on who employed the people it covered. The purchase agreement split notice duties, making the seller responsible for anyone who didn't transfer and the buyer for transferred employees after the closing, and it kept workers who stayed on to provide transition services on the seller's payroll, with the buyer covering their wages. True Value Company, the seller, sent the February 2025 letter that set the Cleveland warehouse's closing to start April 8 or within 14 days after, once the buyer no longer required its services there, and KSHB reported the same reason behind Kansas City's closing. TV Hardware Distribution, which KLCC describes as the Do it Best subsidiary that manages supply chain logistics for True Value stores, filed the closing notice for the Bryn Mawr Avenue office that Illinois's August 2026 report lists. At Springfield, Oregon's WARN list names Impact Outsourcing Solutions as the employer, and KLCC reported that Impact Workforce Solutions supplies Do it Best's staffing through that subsidiary. If you're tracing a notice of your own, a search of our WARN filings under each employer's name is worth running.

True Value-branded stores were outside these cuts. At the bankruptcy the company's 4,500 stores were independently owned, apart from one company store in Palatine, and none was targeted for the layoffs, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. A store's layoff carries its owner's name, as Krueger's True Value in Neenah, Wisconsin showed with its own 2025 notice.

In its first-day court filing, True Value sought the court's permission to keep honoring its corporate severance plan at its discretion, without being directed to, and it didn't then seek authority to pay its senior leaders' severance arrangements. If you moved to the buyer at the closing, the purchase agreement required it to count your years with True Value when deciding eligibility for benefits under its plans and the size of those benefits, except for equity pay and accruals in pension, retirement and retiree medical plans. If a later Do it Best figure counts only your years since the sale, that clause is the part of the deal that speaks to it.

Chicago staff saw the integration arrive in two steps. At the November 2024 closing, Do it Best said True Value would start out as its subsidiary, and its chief executive said the headquarters would likely be merged into Fort Wayne eventually, without necessarily requiring valued employees to relocate where telecommuting was an option, the Journal Gazette reported. The July 2026 decision set one headquarters in Fort Wayne, which Do it Best's operating chief tied to eliminating duplication and reducing costs, and Hardware Retailing reported that just over 20% of Chicago staff would continue with the company, working out of Fort Wayne. If you're weighing a Fort Wayne role against a search closer to home, it's worth pricing the move or the commute against what the role pays before you answer.

A sourced history of True Value layoffs

• August 2026, Springfield, Oregon warehouse closing

  The staffing firm that supplied the warehouse's workers said Do it Best's TV Hardware Distribution would stop operating it and that all 62 would be laid off from October 3 through year's end, KLCC reported.

• July 2026, headquarters move to Fort Wayne announced

  Do it Best said it would move True Value's headquarters to Fort Wayne, keep just over 20% of the Chicago staff, and have the Chicago office's operations materially conclude on October 9, Hardware Retailing reported.

• February 2025, Cleveland-area warehouse closing set

  After the sale, the bankrupt True Value Company, L.L.C. told Ohio in a February 7 letter that the buyer would no longer require its services at the Westlake warehouse from April 8, so the warehouse would close, with no bumping rights.

• February 2025, Kansas City distribution center closing set

  True Value Hardware told Kansas City and Missouri officials it would go ahead with closing its south Kansas City distribution center in April, affecting about 50 jobs, with the new owners no longer requiring its services, KSHB reported.

• October 2024, Chapter 11 filing and Illinois notices

  True Value filed for Chapter 11 on October 14, its court filing shows, and told Illinois that 873 jobs at its headquarters, a warehouse and a manufacturing plant could go from mid-December if the Do it Best sale failed, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

• 2024, Manchester closing and Denver phase-out

  Before the bankruptcy, True Value set its Manchester, New Hampshire warehouse to shut at 2024's end on union-negotiated terms, as its Chapter 11 filing recounts, and a Colorado notice that August in our WARN tracker listed 49 jobs at its Denver center.

What to do if you're laid off from True Value

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