Essendant to Close Lincolnshire HQ, Eliminate 510 Jobs; Additional Illinois Cuts

Essendant announced it is shutting its corporate headquarters in Lincolnshire, Illinois, and plans to eliminate 510 jobs tied to that office — 200 on-site employees and 310 remote workers who report to the Lincolnshire office — with terminations described as permanent and without bumping rights. The company filed a WARN notice Aug. 3 and set the effective date for those terminations as Oct. 3 (or within 14 days after). The article also reports additional Illinois cuts including 134 layoffs at the Carol Stream distribution center and notes an August 2026 set of WARN filings disclosing 1,278 job eliminations across six states. The closures come amid a company restructuring, prior layoffs at other facilities, and an ongoing Illinois WARN Act investigation into Essendant's notices and compliance.

Essendant disclosed this layoff in an official WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice recorded by the IL state workforce agency on August 3, 2026. The notice covers 644 employees in Lincolnshire, IL (Lake County), with the layoff effective October 3, 2026.

The state lists each affected employee separately by work location, so this filing spans 2 IL communities: Carol Stream, Lincolnshire.

That is roughly 32.2% of the 2,000 people Essendant employs.

LayoffTalk has tracked 27 layoff events at Essendant since September 2025, including 2,013 jobs documented in official WARN filings, with 14 additional events known from news reporting.