Laid off from Unilever.

What Unilever layoffs have meant for employees

When Unilever set the Amityville closing, a spokesperson said the factory's production would transfer to other plants in its U.S. network, according to Manufacturing Dive, and the company put the decision down to the site's size, which it said limited the factory's room to expand. Back in 2011, a local United Steelworkers officer expected Melrose Park's work to go to Jonesboro, Arkansas, a former Alberto Culver factory, and to a plant in Missouri. Where the work is moving, there may be a job to follow it. If you're offered both a spot at a receiving site and a package, the pay, the shift and the relocation help there are worth weighing against the severance, along with how long you'd have to decide.

The 2024 program was aimed mostly at office roles, according to Unilever's March 2024 announcement, and its 2025 results say most of the program's costs went to redundancy, with the last 130 million euros of savings due in 2026. The same results put 2025's restructuring spending mainly in supply chain, productivity initiatives and functional transformation. The New Jersey cuts were planned over 13 months as the headquarters moved to Hoboken, according to Cosmetics Business, so not every job was set to end on the same day. If your role is set to end late in a staged cut like that one, the months before it leave time to apply for open Unilever roles, which the company said its New Jersey staff could do.

When Unilever sold Ragu and Bertolli to Mizkan in 2014, two plants went with the brands, Food Ingredients First reported at the time, among them the Owensboro, Kentucky sauce plant. The ice cream business became a standalone company, The Magnum Ice Cream Company, in December 2025, with Unilever keeping a minority stake, according to the 2025 results. If your job went with it, decisions about cuts there now belong to that separate company. Unilever Foods is covered by the McCormick agreement, which the companies were aiming to complete in mid-2027, according to NJBIZ. If you work in Foods and a package or a transfer is put to you, it's worth knowing whether it comes before or after that deal closes, since afterward the business would sit inside McCormick.

A notice from a brand Unilever bought can carry that brand's own company name, as the 2026 Hourglass filing in our WARN tracker did under Kingdom Animalia, and Dr. Squatch's 2023 notice came before Unilever completed its purchase of that company in September 2025, according to the same results. Because that filing came before the purchase, it isn't evidence of how Unilever handled that cut. Kingdom Animalia, Dr. Squatch and the other acquired companies in the tracker were all on the subsidiary list in Unilever's annual 20-F as of December 31, 2025. If your job is at one of Unilever's acquired brands, the brand's legal company name is the one worth looking for in a state's WARN list, alongside Unilever's own.

Illinois holds 10 of the 22 tracker filings, all from Chicago and nearby towns between 2000 and 2012, and California holds four, three of them from acquired brands. New Jersey holds two, both from Englewood Cliffs, where Unilever's North American base spent decades before moving to Hoboken, NJBIZ reported. The rest are in Georgia, Kansas, Maryland and Vermont. If you worked for Unilever in Illinois, New Jersey or California, or at the Jonesboro facility in Arkansas, the unemployment pages for Illinois, New Jersey, California and Arkansas cover who qualifies and what a claim pays there. For the other states where Unilever has filed, unemployment rules by state cover each one.

A sourced history of Unilever layoffs

• July 2026, Hourglass Cosmetics files to close a Carson site

  Kingdom Animalia, listed among Unilever's group companies as of December 31, 2025, set the permanent closing of its Carson, California site for September 15, affecting 7 employees, according to California's WARN report.

• April 2026, Unilever cuts jobs at Jonesboro, Arkansas facility

  Production and shift schedule changes affected 57 employees, a company spokesperson told KAIT, and they were to receive severance packages, outplacement, reskilling and development training. Unilever called Jonesboro an important location in its supply chain network.

• December 2024, Unilever plans 149 New Jersey office cuts

  Unilever planned to eliminate them over 13 months under its productivity program, according to Cosmetics Business, and affected employees could seek open positions and were eligible for severance pay, outplacement and development training. New Jersey's notice in our WARN tracker gives a December 31, 2024 layoff date.

• March 2024, Unilever program to affect about 7,500 roles

  Alongside plans to separate its ice cream business, Unilever's March 19 filing said a productivity program would affect around 7,500 mostly office-based roles worldwide, subject to consultation, and save about 800 million euros over three years.

• November 2023, Unilever to close two Long Island plants

  Unilever's notice covered 169 workers as it planned to end beauty and personal care manufacturing in Amityville and operations at its Farmingdale warehouse, Manufacturing Dive reported, and the company said they could apply for open positions at other Unilever sites, with relocation provided.

• December 2011, Unilever to close Melrose Park, Illinois plant

  Closing the former Alberto Culver factory and adjacent headquarters, which Unilever had bought the year before, would cost an expected 800 jobs, among them some 250 union members, the United Steelworkers said, with the closing set to finish in 2013.

What to do if you're laid off from Unilever

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