Big Lots warns up to 555 Columbus HQ workers of mass layoff

Big Lots put up to 555 Columbus headquarters jobs on notice as the retailer’s bankruptcy and store upheaval pushed deeper into day-to-day paychecks, schedules and benefits. For workers at 4900 East Dublin Granville Road, the immediate question was not legal theory. It was whether the next shift, the next health plan decision or the next transfer chance would come before the job ended.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act is the basic federal backstop in moments like this. When a closing or mass layoff qualifies under the law, employers generally must give 60 days’ notice. The Labor Department says that notice is meant to give workers time to line up a new job or retraining, and it can cover managers and supervisors as well as hourly and salaried employees. Some employers pay in lieu of notice, and some work with Rapid Response teams and state dislocated worker systems to help employees move into another job faster.

Big Lots’ Columbus WARN notice, dated Dec. 19, 2024, said the company would begin a mass layoff the week of Dec. 29 and expected to finish by April 2025. The filing said up to 555 employees would be permanently terminated. It also said there was no union representative and no bumping rights, and it was sent to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther.

The warning landed after a brutal stretch for the chain. Big Lots filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 9, 2024, after financial pressure had already been building. At the start of 2024, the retailer had about 1,392 stores and more than 27,000 employees. Then the planned sale to Nexus Capital Management fell through, Big Lots announced going-out-of-business sales at its remaining locations, and a later deal involving Gordon Brothers and Variety Wholesalers was reported to keep between 200 and 400 stores open.

That split matters for workers because liquidation and conversion are not the same thing. A store closing for good can wipe out jobs outright, while a location that reopens under a new operator can mean different managers, new schedules and a narrow path to stay employed. The moment closure rumors start, workers need to ask whether the location is closing or converting, whether transfers are available, what happens to health coverage, whether severance is being offered and when the last scheduled day will be. Save pay stubs, schedule screenshots, benefit paperwork and every written notice.

For Big Lots associates, WARN is not a guarantee that a job survives. It is a clock, and when the clock starts running, the difference between 60 days and no notice at all can decide whether a worker has time to find the next paycheck before the last one stops.