After laying off 152 employees at its Grinnell, Iowa, manufacturing plant in November 2024, Jeld-Wen filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Monday with Iowa Workforce Development (IWD), announcing closure and additional layoffs for the same plant. Operations in Grinnell will end “in the coming weeks,” Katie Lykins, Jeld-Wen’s manager of external communications told [DWM], with production moving to other existing facilities. The transition will begin immediately, Lykins said.
According to the notice, 298 workers are set to be released March 21, 2025.
“We value the contributions of our employees and have provided those affected with a competitive separation package and outplacement services to help provide a smooth transition,” Lykins says. “While decisions that impact people are never easy, we make them only after careful consideration and with the understanding that our actions today are necessary to position Jeld-Wen for long-term success.”
The company’s WARN notice arrived days after Jeld-Wen Holding Inc., in compliance with court orders, divested of its business in Towanda, Pennsylvania, selling it to Woodgrain Inc.
In 2024, Jeld-Wen closed plants in Vista, California; Hawkins, Wisconsin; and Wedowee, Alabama. In closing the plant in Vista, California, the company also discontinued its Auraline brand of composite windows.
Divestiture of the company’s Towanda plant was completed January 17, 2025, for a purchase price of $115 million, subject to customary closing adjustments, ending a years-long battle over the location, which itself is the last remaining vestige of an anti-trust lawsuit against the company starting in 2016.
Jeld-Wen was ordered to divest of its Towanda plant after San Antonio-based door maker Steves and Sons filed a lawsuit in June 2016 and a trial-by-jury process found the company guilty of violating U.S. antitrust laws. In February 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Court upheld the order. In May 2024, Jeld-Wen pushed back on the ruling, asking the court to vacate all orders requiring divestiture of its facility, before finally giving in to the process.