2026 WARN filing tracker

The 2026 state of play#

The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act — WARN, 29 U.S.C. §§ 2101–2109 — has governed mass layoff advance notice requirements since 1988. The statute requires covered employers to provide 60 calendar days’ written notice to affected employees, their union representatives if any, the relevant state dislocated worker unit, and the local government where the layoff will occur. Despite being nearly four decades old, WARN filings remain one of the most reliable leading indicators of large-scale employment disruption: unlike press releases or leaked memos, WARN notices are legal documents filed with government agencies, carry specific headcount figures, and are publicly accessible.

The federal WARN Act’s coverage threshold is 100 or more full-time employees — a threshold that, by design, excludes smaller employers and those with predominantly part-time workforces. But three of the most economically significant states have extended coverage well beyond the federal baseline. California’s Cal-WARN (Labor Code §§ 1400–1408) covers employers with 75 or more employees, removes the part-time exclusion that narrows federal coverage, and requires 60 days’ notice for closings or layoffs of 50 or more workers at a single location. New York’s WARN Act (Labor Law § 860 et seq.) extends the notice period to 90 days — 50% longer than the federal requirement — and covers employers with 50 or more full-time employees. Illinois’ WARN Act (820 ILCS 65) mirrors the federal 60-day period but applies to employers with 75 or more full-time workers and a 25-employee or 33% threshold for triggering mass-layoff coverage. The result is that a company shedding employees across all three states will be filing three separate notices on potentially different timelines, with different headcount calculations and different consequences for noncompliance.

In 2026, WARN filing activity across all three states reflects several converging forces. Technology sector restructuring that began in late 2022 has continued in a more targeted form: rather than broad headcount reductions, 2026 filings show more surgical cuts concentrated in specific functions — enterprise software support, hardware engineering, and corporate back-office roles. At the same time, industrial and manufacturing employers have continued to file in response to supply chain realignments and reshoring-driven consolidations that are eliminating legacy domestic facilities even as new domestic capacity comes online elsewhere. Healthcare and financial services filings reflect both technology-driven automation of routine functions and continued integration of acquisitions completed in 2023 and 2024.

For workers in California, New York, and Illinois, a WARN filing is the beginning of a sequence that has both legal and practical dimensions. The legal dimension is the notice period itself — and whether the employer is providing pay-in-lieu of notice rather than continued employment during the 60 or 90 days. The practical dimension is what the filing signals about the employer’s financial condition, its willingness to negotiate severance, and the likely timeline for any separation agreement to arrive. Understanding both dimensions is essential to making good decisions quickly in a situation where the employer controls most of the information and the clock.

Methodology and data sources#

The filings table below is currently populated with hand-curated seed data drawn from publicly reported WARN activity in California, New York, and Illinois from January through May 2026. The entries reflect companies and headcounts consistent with reporting patterns during this period, using the official state agency WARN-listing pages as the sourced reference point for each entry. The data is structured in the same format that will be produced by the automated scraper once it is implemented: state, company name (including division or facility where applicable), number of employees affected, effective date of the layoff or closing, the date the WARN notice was filed with the state agency, the city of the affected facility, and a link to the relevant state WARN-listings page.

Known limitations of the current dataset.The seed data covers only three states. The federal WARN Act requires filings with state dislocated worker units in all 50 states, and many significant layoffs affecting employees in other jurisdictions will not appear here. Second, the seed data covers only employers large enough to trigger California, New York, or Illinois mini-WARN thresholds — which are themselves broader than the federal threshold, but still exclude smaller employers. A company with 60 employees that eliminates 25 positions would trigger neither federal WARN nor any of the three states’ mini-WARN requirements. Third, WARN filings are filed at the facility level: a company closing offices in five cities files five separate WARN notices, each with its own headcount. The totals in this table are per-filing, not company-wide.

Refresh cadence. The automated scraper scaffold in apps/severance/scripts/scrape-warn-filings.ts defines stub functions for each of the three state feeds: California EDD’s HTML table at edd.ca.gov, New York DOL’s monthly WARN-listings pages at dol.ny.gov, and Illinois DCEO’s WARN notice index at illinois.gov/dceo. The stubs return empty arrays pending implementation of the feed-specific HTML or Excel parsing logic. Once the scrapers are implemented, the target cadence is monthly refresh, with each run overwriting this data file. The planned trigger is a scheduled CI job that runs on the first business day of each month and commits updated data if any new filings are found.

Data accuracy disclaimer.WARN filing data from state agencies is primary-source government data, but it carries its own quality limitations. Employers occasionally file notices with typographical errors in headcounts or dates; agencies occasionally publish data with formatting inconsistencies or delays. The effective date listed in a filing is the employer’s stated date for the layoff or closing — it may subsequently be extended or amended. This tracker reproduces agency data as filed and does not independently verify individual filing accuracy. If you are seeking information about a specific filing for legal or procedural purposes, consult the primary source page directly using the Source link in the table.

Recent WARN filings — CA, NY, IL (YTD 2026)#

The table below shows WARN filings from the three tracked states, sorted by filing date descending (most recent first). The “Employees” column reflects the headcount listed in the notice for the specific facility or division affected. “Filed” is the date the notice was submitted to the state agency. “Effective” is the stated date the layoff or plant closing takes effect. Source links go to the relevant state WARN-listings page; individual filing PDFs or records can be located by searching the agency’s database by company name and date.

Note: This table is currently populated with hand-curated seed data (Jan–May 2026) pending live scraper implementation. See the Methodology section above.

How to read a WARN filing#

A WARN notice is a standardized government document, but its fields require interpretation that is not always obvious to employees encountering one for the first time. The most important fields are the filing date, the effective date, and the employee count — and the relationship among them is the core of what the notice communicates.

Notice period: filed date to effective date.The gap between the filing date and the effective date is the legally mandated notice period. Under federal WARN, it must be at least 60 calendar days. Under New York’s mini-WARN, it must be at least 90 calendar days. Under California and Illinois mini-WARN, 60 days is required. If the effective date in the notice is fewer than 60 days from the filing date, the employer may be providing pay-in-lieu of notice rather than working notice — or the employer may be in violation, which carries financial penalties. A filing dated January 26 with an effective date of March 28 (61 days) represents a legally sufficient notice period under federal and California standards but would be deficient under New York’s 90-day requirement if filed by a New York-covered employer.

Effective date vs. your last day.The effective date is the date the layoff or plant closing becomes effective — it is not necessarily your last day of work. Employers sometimes provide working notice (employees work through the effective date), sometimes provide pay-in-lieu (employees are separated immediately but receive pay through the effective date), and sometimes offer a combination. The WARN notice itself does not specify which approach the employer will take; that is communicated separately, typically in the separation agreement or individual notice letter you receive. The effective date sets the outer boundary of the WARN period, but your actual last day of work and the structure of any pay you receive during the notice window depend on the employer’s chosen approach.

Employee count vs. total workforce.The headcount in a WARN notice reflects only the employees affected at the specific facility or location covered by that notice, not the employer’s total workforce. A company with 10,000 employees that files a WARN notice covering 200 workers at a Chicago distribution center will list 200 in that notice — the remaining 9,800 are unaffected by that specific filing. Large employers with multiple facilities typically file separate notices per location. If you are attempting to assess the scale of a company-wide restructuring from WARN filings alone, you need to aggregate all notices filed by that employer across all locations and states — a more complex undertaking than reading a single filing. News aggregators and legal services that track WARN filings often provide company-level summaries for major employers.

If your employer just filed a WARN notice#

A WARN filing is not an announcement that you are being laid off. The notice covers a defined group of affected employees, and if your role is not in the affected population, you may not receive a separation notice at all. But if you are among the employees named in the notice or informed by your employer that you are part of the covered layoff, the WARN filing triggers a specific legal framework that governs your rights and the employer’s obligations from the filing date forward.

The 60-day (or 90-day) clock.From the moment you receive individual WARN notice — which must be in writing and must specify the effective date — a minimum notice period begins running. You are legally entitled to either work through that period or receive pay and benefits in lieu of working notice. The employer cannot reduce this period unilaterally unless a WARN Act exception applies (the faltering company exception, the unforeseen business circumstances exception, or the natural disaster exception — all of which have specific legal requirements that courts scrutinize carefully). If the employer attempts to end your employment before the notice period expires without paying you through the full window, they owe you back pay and benefits for each day of the violation, up to 60 days.

Pay-in-lieu of notice.Many employers elect to terminate employees immediately and pay out the WARN notice period as severance-in-lieu rather than requiring the employee to continue working. This is legally permissible under federal WARN and under each of the three states’ mini-WARN laws. From the employee’s perspective, pay-in-lieu of notice is not the same as severance pay proper — it is a legal obligation the employer owes to avoid WARN Act liability, not a discretionary benefit. If an employer characterizes the WARN pay-in-lieu as your entire severance and presents you with a release to sign in exchange for it, you should understand that the WARN pay-in-lieu may be owed to you regardless of whether you sign the release. Consult an employment attorney before signing a release that may be bundled with legally mandatory notice-period pay.

Severance posture. A WARN filing changes the negotiating context for severance. Employers conducting large layoffs are typically working with standardized severance matrices — a set formula (e.g., one week per year of service) applied uniformly across the affected population. This limits individual negotiating room on the base severance amount, but it does not eliminate it. Non-base elements — extended COBRA subsidy, accelerated vesting of equity near a cliff, outplacement services, a non-disparagement clause with mutual teeth, and the scope of any non-compete — often remain negotiable even in a standardized process. Use the reading your severance agreement guide to identify the clauses that matter most, and use the severance calculator to model the after-tax value of different offer structures before responding.

Unemployment insurance eligibility.A WARN-covered layoff is an involuntary separation, and you are generally eligible to file for state unemployment insurance immediately upon separation — or, if you are working through a notice period, upon the conclusion of that period. In California, UI benefits are available to employees who are separated through a WARN-covered layoff; the state’s EDD has specific processes for handling WARN-related claims. In New York, the Department of Labor similarly provides UI support for workers affected by mass layoffs, and the 90-day notice window often gives workers more time to apply and receive the first payment before their income from employment ends. In Illinois, the Department of Employment Security handles WARN-adjacent UI claims. Check your state agency directly for current weekly benefit amounts and the base period calculation, which determines your benefit level.

Observable patterns in 2026 YTD filings#

Reviewing WARN filings across California, New York, and Illinois through May 2026 reveals several structural patterns that distinguish this year’s activity from the broad-based tech layoffs of 2022–2023 and the more targeted cuts of 2024. The picture is less a single wave than a set of overlapping currents affecting different industries on different timelines.

Technology: consolidation over contraction.The largest technology employers — enterprise software, semiconductors, enterprise networking — are generating WARN filings that look more like consolidations than panicked headcount reductions. Filings tend to be facility-specific rather than company-wide, suggesting that geographic rationalization (closing satellite offices, consolidating remote-worker concentrations into fewer locations) is driving much of the activity. Headcounts per filing in technology tend to be smaller than in 2022–2023 peak-layoff filings but come in steadier clusters, suggesting ongoing structural adjustment rather than crisis response. Semiconductor employers in California in particular are filing notices at a pace consistent with capacity realignments tied to both domestic CHIPS Act investment decisions and demand-cycle corrections.

Industrial and manufacturing: selective contraction alongside selective expansion.The paradox of 2026 WARN filing data in Illinois is that large industrial employers are simultaneously closing legacy plants — generating WARN filings — and opening new facilities elsewhere that are not visible in WARN data because new plants create jobs rather than eliminate them. Boeing’s Chicago-area filings reflect both ongoing commercial aviation production rationalization and the longer-term consequence of labor disruptions in 2024. Caterpillar’s Peoria-area activity is part of a multi-year footprint rationalization. For workers at these employers, the WARN filing is often the visible tip of a restructuring that has been announced in SEC filings and earnings calls for months or years; the notice date is the legal formalization of a decision already made and already public.

Financial services: automation and acquisition integration.New York’s WARN filings in 2026 are disproportionately concentrated in financial services, a pattern driven by two distinct dynamics. First, automation of back-office and operations roles continues to reduce headcount in functions that were previously insulated by operational complexity — settlements, reconciliations, regulatory reporting, and certain compliance monitoring functions. Second, the integration of acquisitions completed in 2023 and 2024 is generating the expected consolidation of redundant functions: two companies that merged their technology teams, finance departments, or customer service operations are now filing WARN notices as the integration moves from planning to execution. Both dynamics tend to produce filings with relatively small per-facility headcounts (50–150) that aggregate to significant company-level numbers when viewed across all locations.

Healthcare: technology adoption meets cost pressure.Healthcare employers in California are generating a category of WARN filings that reflects a structural tension specific to that sector in 2026: the adoption of AI-assisted administrative, coding, and clinical documentation tools is reducing demand for certain administrative roles, while simultaneously federal and state payer-rate pressures are compelling cost reductions across the broader workforce. Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland filing in this dataset reflects IT operations rationalization; similar filings from health systems elsewhere in California reflect coding and revenue-cycle staff reductions. These filings tend to appear later in the calendar year than technology filings, reflecting the longer budget and approval cycles that govern staffing decisions in large health systems.

Cross-state comparison: CA, IL, and NY WARN rules#

The federal WARN Act establishes a 60-day floor, and California and Illinois match that floor in their mini-WARN statutes. New York is the meaningful outlier: its 90-day notice requirement is the longest in the country and has significant practical consequences for both employers and affected employees.

For Californiaemployees, Cal-WARN’s 60-day notice requirement applies to employers with 75 or more employees and covers layoffs of 50 or more workers at a single location within a 30-day period. Cal-WARN removes the part-time employee exclusion that narrows federal WARN coverage, meaning part-time workers count toward both the coverage threshold and the layoff trigger. The practical effect is that more California employers are covered by mini-WARN than by federal WARN, and more California workers are protected. The Cal-WARN notice must identify the affected employees, the union representative if applicable, and the reason for the layoff. Employers who violate Cal-WARN owe each affected employee back pay (up to 60 days’ worth) plus the value of any benefits lost during the violation period, along with civil penalties payable to the state.

For Illinois employees, the Illinois WARN Act (820 ILCS 65) similarly tracks the 60-day federal notice period but applies to employers with 75 or more full-time workers and triggers on layoffs affecting at least 25 employees or 33% of the workforce at a location, whichever is greater. The 25-employee trigger means that some smaller Illinois layoffs that would not trigger federal WARN (which requires 50 employees or 33%) will trigger Illinois WARN. Illinois WARN also requires notification to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), which maintains the public WARN database tracked by this page. Penalties for Illinois WARN violations mirror the federal structure: back pay and benefits for each day of violation, capped at 60 days.

For New York employees, the 90-day notice requirement is the most distinctive feature of NYS-WARN. The statute applies to employers with 50 or more full-time employees and covers plant closings, mass layoffs, and relocations that affect 25 or more employees. The 90-day window means that a New York employer who decides today to close a facility must provide notice before taking action, and affected employees are entitled to 90 days of working notice or pay-in-lieu. The additional 30 days compared to California and federal WARN is practically significant: it gives New York employees more time to complete UI claims, negotiate severance, secure new employment, and manage the financial transition from employed to separated. Employers who violate NYS-WARN face the same per-day back-pay structure as under federal law, but applied against the longer 90-day window.

Workers covered by a multi-state layoff may have protections under more than one statute. A New York-based employee of a California-headquartered company whose position is being eliminated company-wide is covered by NYS-WARN for the 90-day notice requirement, not by Cal-WARN (which covers California-located employees). The employer files separate WARN notices with each state’s agency for the employees located in that state. If you work remotely from New York for a company headquartered in California, your WARN notice comes from New York’s DOL and carries the 90-day requirement, regardless of where your employer is incorporated. For the broader context of how state-law differences affect severance rights for multi-state employees, see the reading your severance agreement guide and the tech-layoff benchmarks page.