Layoff notices (WARN)

What it is

Under the federal WARN Act, an employer with 100 or more workers must give 60 days' notice before a mass layoff or a plant closing, and many states publish those notices. We collect them from twelve states and match the employer to a public company when the name lines up. About one notice in ten matches a public company, so the page starts with those; switch Employers to see all of them.

Who files it

The employer, to its state labor department, which publishes the list. Each state has its own format and its own timing.

How current

We check each state's list every day. States add notices on their own schedules, from the same week to several weeks later. New Jersey and Pennsylvania publish no notice date, so their notices appear only when you search by ticker.

Terms

WARN ActThe Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, a federal law. An employer with 100 or more employees must give 60 days' written notice before a plant closing or a mass layoff, and the notice goes to the state, the affected workers and local officials.company matchWe match the employer's name to a public company automatically. A subsidiary or a differently spelled name can be missed, and a similar name can be matched wrongly.

Worth knowing

Not every layoff comes with a notice: smaller cuts, employers under the size threshold, and states we do not collect are missing. A notice is advance warning, so the layoff can end up smaller, later or called off. California lists a notice for several sites as separate lines, which we add together. We match employer names to companies automatically, so a subsidiary can be missed and a similar name can be matched wrongly. Notices dated in the future are left out, and effective dates that are clearly typing errors are left blank.

All of this comes from notices that state governments publish.