Upjohn Institute Michigan Layoff Tracker
The Upjohn Institute Regional Team tracks layoff notices and provides quarterly updates on all large-scale layoffs across the state of Michigan, illustrating the dynamic nature of the regional economy and providing a valuable tool for governments, economic development agencies, and non-profits.
In addition to the regular update of the Michigan layoffs map and breakdown of layoffs by sector, this quarter’s update focuses on the decline of paper manufacturing in southwest Michigan and how economic uncertainty is impacting labor markets.
Key takeaways from quarterly update:
- In the last year, southwest Michigan companies have filed eight layoff notices – impacting more than 800 workers.
- Economic uncertainty continues to impact manufacturers across the state.
- Paper manufacturing in and around Kalamazoo continues to decline.
- The Upjohn map of layoffs in Michigan has been updated, showing where large scale layoffs have occurred over the past several years.
The report is based on data provided by employers under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) is a federal labor law that requires employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 days' advance notice of plant closings or mass layoffs. (In May 2020, the Upjohn Institute published research titled "ForeWARNing? Michigan’s Announced Mass Layoffs Under the WARN Act," tracking and analyzing layoff notices during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic).
The map examines the frequency and scale of WARN notifications issued in Michigan since 2016 – the period before, during, and after the pandemic. The map shows that pre-pandemic WARN notices in Michigan were typically tied to seasonal factors or issues impacting the manufacture of durable goods. During the pandemic, there was an increase in layoffs, particularly in service industries. As the pandemic subsided, Michigan recovered from the initial shock caused by the pandemic, and WARN notices are now in line with pre-pandemic levels. To see more economic information for Michigan Counties, please visit the Upjohn Regional Datahub
The “Multiplier Effect” Across Industries
The chart below groups the WARN notices by durable manufacturing (products that do not expire), non-durable manufacturing (products that expire quickly), service industries, and agriculture – exposing trends within the larger industry groupings. In addition to the direct employment losses announced by WARN notices, the chart represents the indirect loss in employment, output, gross regional product, personal income, and state and local government revenue due to affecting companies in related supply or customer chains. This represents the cumulative ripple effect that the layoffs have on the state economy due to multipliers for each sector of the economy. These multipliers are a measure of an Industry's connection to the wider local economy by way of input purchases, sales of their products, payments of wages and taxes, and other transactions. The effects of layoffs are most pronounced in durable goods, followed by non-durable goods, services, and agriculture.
Layoffs within Prosperity Region 8, paper manufacturing continues to decline
In 2025, Eight southwest Michigan companies filed notices of layoffs affecting 812 workers. Some were required because companies were laying off more than 100 employees, and others were voluntary because their contractions were below that number. Michigan follows the federal WARN Act and is not one of the 13 other states that have their own stipulations for companies to inform layoffs, in addition to the federal law.
On February 6, 2025, Pactiv Evergreen Services Inc., a paper mill, announced the closure of its facility and the layoff of 153 people. This was the only company that announced layoffs in the first quarter of 2025.
Since January 2024, six WARN notices have been issued for companies within the Paper Manufacturing subsector (NAICS 322), resulting in a total of 492 layoffs. Of the six WARN notices issued, five were from the facility closing. While the paper manufacturing industry has been declining for at least the last half-century, this string of layoffs within the past 18 months is greater than the layoffs that occurred in this industry from 2016 to 2023 (311 layoffs). Relative to its 2001 level, the paper manufacturing industry has experienced a greater decline in Kalamazoo County than at the state or national level, losing half of its business establishments.
While containerboard production grew with the adoption of online sales and deliveries, market responses led to an oversupply over the last few years. The decline over the last two years, due to oversupply, was exacerbated by the imposed tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber and EU paperboard products. Businesses were facing the need to diversify their supply chains, renegotiate supply contracts, and explore fixed-price hedging or forward-buying arrangements. Not every company made its new business model profitable, and some were forced to downsize or close. While this trend is typical nationwide and severely affects paper mills in Georgia, where paper manufacturing leads the state’s manufacturing industry, it also significantly impacts southwest Michigan.
Chart 1 illustrates a long-term decline in paper manufacturing establishments beginning in 2001, with the most significant losses occurring in Prosperity Region 8 and Kalamazoo County. Of the six facilities that have closed since January 2024, two were in Kalamazoo County: Opus Packaging and Pactiv Evergreen. Opus Packaging offered the employees who were affected jobs in their same job classification or better at the plant in Caledonia. However, employees at the Pactiv Evergreen site were not offered jobs at the other Pactiv Evergreen site in Kalamazoo County. Additionally, Pactiv Evergreen was acquired by Novolex in April 2025. These two closures amounted to 215 layoffs, which accounted for approximately 13 percent of all employment within the paper manufacturing industry in Kalamazoo County. There are now fewer than 15 paper manufacturing establishments in Kalamazoo County, down from 29 in 2001.
Other nondurable goods industries that have experienced layoffs in Michigan since 2024 include Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing (NAICS 326), totaling 552 layoffs, and Food Manufacturing (NAICS 311), totaling 121 layoffs. Nearly 25 percent of all layoffs in Michigan’s Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing industry (133 workers) took place in Prosperity Region 8. Firms in this industry are key suppliers to the automotive sector. Recent UAW strikes and strike-related shutdowns, which halted production and reduced orders for components, may be contributing factors to these declines in our region. Other factors could include tariffs and trade uncertainty, which increase input costs and reduce competitiveness; inventory corrections and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) production slowdowns, as automakers manage excess stock or adjust model strategies; and electrification and technology shifts, which are reducing demand for certain traditional plastic and rubber components used in internal-combustion vehicles.
On July 1, 2025, Beacon Health Systems completed its acquisition of Ascension Borgess hospitals in southwest Michigan. Consequently, this acquisition resulted in the layoff of 244 workers from Compass Group USA in southwest Michigan, which provided food and support services to Ascension Borgess hospitals. Job classifications affected include Patient Transporters, Cashier Workers, Cooks, Dishwashers, Housekeepers, and Operations/Systems Directors. Beacon stated in their online FAQ that “all southwest Michigan clinicians and associates will be offered the opportunity to continue employment with Beacon Health System, provided they follow Beacon’s hiring process and meet the legal requirements to work.”
Longer-Term Trends of the WARN Notices
Tariffs and broader economic uncertainties in the United States continue to weigh on manufacturers, particularly those tied to the automotive supply chain. For the entire year of 2025, there were 37 manufacturing-related (NAICS 31–33) layoffs in Michigan, with more than half of them—25 layoffs—occurring in just the third quarter. Of those 25, at least seven employers cited tariffs or a general downturn in the U.S. market as contributing factors.
In addition, several automotive manufacturers and suppliers reported that slowing EV adoption—driven in part by the expiration of federal tax credits available before September 30, 2025—has reduced orders. Major automakers, including General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, had already announced significant layoffs throughout 2024, pointing to weakening EV demand even before those tax credits expired. The weakening demand has also come at a fiscal cost to automakers as some are now attempting to pivot their EV production to more profitable gasoline vehicle production. Some of these costs have been settlements with suppliers that invested based on EV projections from automakers. This relationship between automakers and suppliers is a new philosophy for Detroit that will help give suppliers confidence in taking a chance on new technology.
The national labor market in late 2025 continued to exhibit what economists described as a “big hold,” a dynamic in which larger employers are reluctant to reduce staff but are equally hesitant to expand their workforce or invest in business growth. Many firms—particularly in manufacturing, logistics, and professional services—are still engaging in labor hoarding after the hiring challenges of 2021–2023, choosing to maintain staffing even as demand softens. This strategy reflects both the lingering difficulty of finding skilled workers and the anticipation that economic conditions will improve. As a result, employment levels remain stable but largely flat, with limited new hiring outside of a few sectors such as health care and government. Through these examples of WARN notices, we might see the end of this hold, especially among midsized companies that have less resilience to withstand it. The trend of a “big hold” evolved into “fire, not hire” by the end of 2025, especially among small and midsized employers, which did not necessarily lay off hundreds of employees at once but cumulatively had a significant effect on the labor market.
At the same time, workers are also staying put. Voluntary quits have dropped significantly from the highs of the “Great Resignation” as employees weigh economic uncertainty, the cooling job market, slower wage growth, and broader concerns about layoffs in industries such as tech, automotive, and finance. Many workers are also constrained by housing-related factors, including mortgage lock-in, which limits mobility. This combination of employers holding onto workers and employees staying in place has created a labor market characterized by low layoffs, low turnover, and modest hiring—a clear holding pattern as both sides wait for greater economic clarity heading into 2026. This pattern may persist further, especially when workers witness layoffs that affect those close to them.
Remote workers have continued to be included in more WARN Notices since 2024. In 2024, there were 9 remote workers affected by layoffs; in 2025, there have been 60. Layoffs affecting remote workers have been in the service industry, specifically Administrative and Support Services, Information, Transportation and Warehousing, and Scientific and Professional Services. The occupations included in these layoffs exclusively represented professional occupations or knowledge-based work.
The total number of layoffs each year has been roughly evenly split between manufacturing and service industries, with some years leaning more toward one sector than the other. However, within the service sector, the mix of industries experiencing the most layoffs has shifted in 2023, 2024, and 2025 toward those that employ professional or knowledge-based workers.
In the third quarter of 2025, Marshall’s company, Marshall Excelsior Co Inc, in Metal Tank (Heavy Gouge) Manufacturing, NAICS 322, announced the closing of its facility and the layoff of 71 employees. The fourth quarter of 2025 accounted for two more layoff notices: IAC Mendon, LLC (Other Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturing, NAICS 336 in Mendon), was letting 178 people go, and Post Consumer Brands, LLC (Breakfast Cereal Manufacturing, NAICS 311 in Battle Creek), announced a layoff of 71 employees. While layoff notices overall in 2025 were issued to 812 people in Prosperity Region 8, the regional annualized numbers were slightly lower due to letting go of some employees at the middle or end of the year. While the last two quarters affected 320 employees directly, they triggered additional job losses of 193 employees in regional supply chain companies (indirect economic impact) and 146 employees in population service industries, affected by reduced household spending due to the lost income of laid-off employees across all companies (induced economic impact).
The year 2025 marked the end of a 10-year period since Upjohn Regional started to track layoff notices in Prosperity Region 8. Since 2016, 51 companies in our region filed WARN notices, directly affecting 6,322 people. The notices ranged from massive layoffs of 1,489 people by Pokagon Gaming Authority (dba Four Winds Casinos) in 2020 to single-digit layoffs of 7 and 8 people by Nestle in 2019 and H&R Wood Specialties, Inc., in 2020, respectively. The bulk of layoffs occurred during COVID-related closings; during 2020, starting on March 24, companies filed notices about letting go of 3,283 employees. In comparison, 1,251 people were affected by filed layoff notices before March 24, 2020, and 1,788 were affected between 2021 and 2025. For the 10-year period, notices were given for layoffs of 3,061 manufacturing and utilities employees and 3,261 employees in the service industries.
As of February 16th, 2026, there have been six layoffs announced that account for 507 jobs. The largest two layoffs announced are the Great Lakes Coca-Cola Distribution center in Lansing (161 impacted) and the Grouper Acquisition Company in Comstock (operating as Shiloh Industries, 160 impacted). Shiloh Industries specializes in the design engineering and manufacturing of BEV battery enclosures, park-lock actuators, lightweight structural systems, and laminated acoustic panels. Along with the permanent closure at the Comstock site, Shiloh Industries will also be closing its metal stamping facility in Goshen, Indiana.
An updated version of this data will be published quarterly.
It is important to note that the rules governing WARN notices can be complicated, as there are exceptions to the Federal WARN Act. Employers are covered under WARN if they have 100 or more employees, not counting employees who have worked less than 6 months in the last 12 months, and not counting employees who work an average of less than 20 hours a week. For more details, please reference the WARN Fact Sheet.