Adjustable bed maker closes Kentucky operation, lays off 100 workers
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Leggett & Platt will close its Georgetown, KY bed plant, cutting 122 jobs.
- Layoffs begin Nov. 10 and will conclude by end of Q1 2026 in phased rounds.
- Closure follows weak bedding demand, restructuring, and major aerospace sale.
A Kentucky operation making adjustable bed bases in Georgetown is closing and eliminating approximately 122 positions at the facility.
The initial round of employee separations from Leggett & Platt will begin Nov. 10, according to a notice filed Sept. 10 with Kentucky officials as is required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN Act.
The remaining workforce reductions are expected to take place in phases and be complete by the end of next year’s first quarter, the letter said. Some 90 production and production support employees, six working in clerical and administrative roles and four in management are expected to be let go from Leggett & Platt, according to the letter.
“This decision is a result of difficult business conditions and is intended to enhance operational efficiency within the organization,” said Leggett & Platt Director of Employee and Labor Relations Michael Altman in the letter to the state’s Education and Labor Cabinet.
The Scott County facility at 108 Summer Ct. is not unionized, the letter said, and the company is exploring sources of outplacement assistance, the term for services provided by an employer to its laid off employees to aid in transitioning to a new job.
Leggett & Platt is a Missouri-based manufacturing company. It formed when company founders developed and patented a steel coil bedspring around 1880. Later, the company began broadening its line of products to include more furniture pieces and engineered components for cars and airplanes. In 1971, it was listed on the newly established NASDAQ stock exchange.
The company is now traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker LEG and is a component of the S&P 600, the stock index. On Thursday afternoon, Leggett & Platt was trading down almost 27% on the year at $9.64 per share.
On Aug. 29, Leggett & Platt said it completed the sale of its Aerospace Products Group for $250 million. Proceeds, the company said, would be used to pay down debt and strengthen the company’s balance sheet and leverage ratio, the measure used to determine how long a company may want to use its own debt to finance its operations.
Shortly after selling the aerospace asset, a financial analysis of the company’s second-quarter report said the company was “still underway with its reconstruction and restructuring plan to make up for its strategic missteps that have pulverized its sales and profits in recent years.”
According to its second-quarter report, Leggett & Platt’s organic sales were down 6% and it made $1.1 billion during April, May and June. During the quarter, bedding product sales decreased 11% “primarily due to demand softness in U.S. and European bedding markets, retailer merchandising changes in Adjustable Bed, and restructuring-related sales attrition.”
In January 2024, the company’s board of directors approved a restructuring plan that included the elimination of between 900 and 1,000 jobs and the closure of multiple facilities. Leggett & Platt also operates a manufacturing and production plant in Leitchfield. There has not been a WARN notice filed related to the Grayson County operation.
As of December 2024, Leggett & Platt employed 17,700 people. Some 11,500 of those workers were “engaged in production” and approximately 10,200 were international employees.
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