The largest furniture manufacturer in the world is making cuts to its U.S. workforce.
Ashley Furniture, which has more than 790 stores in the United States, will lay off 266 employees at its Mesquite manufacturing and distribution center on May 7, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining notice filed with the Texas Workforce Commission on March 5.
Among the 266 workers to be laid off are 109 in upholstery training, 31 machine operators and 24 in packing. The laid-off employees at the Mesquite facility will have options, though. Ashley plans to offer them positions at other Ashley manufacturing locations and possibly at the Mesquite facility.
“We’re offering job opportunities with Ashley at our other facilities. We may also have available positions at our Distribution Center in Mesquite,” Kelly Moriarity, senior director of human resources, said in Ashley’s layoff filing with the workforce commission. “We hope employees given offers will accept them.”
With more than 35,000 employees, the layoffs account for less than 1 percent of the company’s workforce.
The furniture company chose the layoffs as part of its goal to “optimize its manufacturing footprint, vertically integrate its facilities, and strengthen long-term operational efficiency,” the letter noted.
At the time the facility opened in 2018, it employed 350 people, a press release from Gov. Greg Abbott’s office noted. It is unclear how many distribution employees the Mesquite location will have after the May layoff.
Ashley’s layoffs come amid a cloud of uncertainty that hangs over United States manufacturing amid tariffs imposed on imports by President Donald Trump.
The furniture industry faces 25 percent levies on certain imports, CNBC this past month.
The tariffs make it difficult for furniture companies to plan ahead and properly formulate alternative plans to combat higher costs, Peter Theran, CEO of industry advocate Home Furnishings Association, told CNBC.
“The No. 1 driver of the difficulty of managing your business is unpredictability and an inability to make alternative plans and invest in those plans, because you don’t know what tomorrow will be,” he said.
Though the current tariff situation is murky for furniture manufacturers, Ashley CEO Todd Wanek seemed optimistic about it when he spoke with the Home Furnishings Association in April 2025.
In the wake of Trump’s early 2025 tariff announcements, the company stopped doing business with mainland China on April 1 of that year.
“We read the tea leaves early,” Wanek told the association. “It’s every leader’s responsibility to see things before others see them and make the necessary changes.”
Heavy automation and diversification among its material sourcing partners are two ways the company planned to handle the impact of tariffs, Wanek said.
