In a letter to employees earlier this week, Sherwin-Williams president and CEO Heidi Petz announced that the company will be suspending matching contributions to employees’ 401(k) retirement plans to support the long-term health of the company. Employee contributions to the 401(k) are not impacted by this suspension and will continue as each employee has elected.

The reasoning stated in the email included lower-than-expected sales in the first half of the year.

“Our first half sales were weaker than we expected, and the second half sales improvement we expected is not materializing,” Petz wrote in the email. “These factors led us to reduce our full-year sales and earnings guidance in July. Unfortunately, customer demand remains soft, and in some areas, it’s getting worse. We expect these headwinds to continue into at least the first half of 2026.”

Sherwin-Williams has suspended matching in the past, during the 2009 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, but returned to full matching following each of those events.

“We’ve taken disciplined, responsible and aggressive cost-saving measures to respond: reducing third-party spending, simplifying operations, delaying new hires, restructuring global assets, implementing select voluntary separation programs and other targeted workforce reductions,” Petz wrote in the email. “We are confident this temporary suspension will help us navigate the current environment while preserving our ability to invest in our people and our future.”