What PlainLayoffs Is

Our Mission

PlainLayoffs exists because workers deserve advance warning when mass layoffs are coming, and the federal WARN Act was designed to provide exactly that. But the reality is that WARN Act data is scattered across dozens of state workforce agency websites, filed in inconsistent formats, and rarely searchable in any meaningful way.

We believe that workers, job seekers, journalists, and economic researchers should have access to centralized, searchable WARN Act data without navigating 50 different government portals or parsing PDFs. When a major employer files a WARN notice, the affected workers and their communities should be able to find that information easily.

Our goal is to make mass layoff data transparent and accessible. We aggregate public WARN Act filings into a single searchable database, normalized for consistency, so anyone can research employer layoff history, track industry trends, and understand the employment landscape.

Our Data Sources

PlainLayoffs aggregates WARN Act filings from publicly available state workforce agency data. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act is a federal law enacted in 1988 that requires employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 calendar days advance notice of plant closings and mass layoffs affecting 50 or more workers.

WARN notices are filed with state Rapid Response units and become public records. California WARN Act data comes directly from the California Employment Development Department (EDD), which publishes reports under California's own WARN law with lower thresholds than the federal statute.

We supplement state WARN data with documented major employer layoff events from public company filings (SEC 8-K and 10-K reports), news sources, and official corporate announcements. All data is obtained from public government sources and publicly available records. We do not use data that is not publicly available.

Official reference: U.S. Department of Labor WARN Act guidance.

How We Process the Data

Raw WARN Act notices contain varying levels of detail depending on the filing state. Some states provide structured CSV or database downloads; others publish only PDF scans or HTML tables. We standardize this data through the following processing steps:

• Company name normalization: We remove legal suffixes (Inc., LLC, Corp., etc.) and normalize variations to group notices from the same employer. For example, "Amazon.com Services LLC" and "Amazon Fulfillment Services Inc." are linked to the same parent entity.
• Geographic standardization: Location data is normalized to state codes and city names using a consistent geographic reference.
• Industry classification: Industry descriptions from WARN filings are mapped to NAICS-based categories for cross-state comparison.
• Event type preservation: Where notices specify "layoff" versus "closure," we preserve that distinction. Notices without this information are classified as "layoff" by default.
• Employer profiling: We aggregate notices over time to build employer-level profiles showing layoff history, total affected workers, geographic footprint, and industry classification.

Worker counts are taken directly from filed notices without adjustment or estimation. Our database reflects what employers reported, not projected or modeled figures.

Data Currency

PlainLayoffs displays WARN Act filings from available state workforce agency data on a rolling basis, refreshed as each source agency publishes updates. Different states release data on different schedules - some update weekly, others quarterly. California data is typically the most current due to its structured, regularly updated reporting system. See the methodology page for the current data vintage.

There is an inherent lag between when a WARN notice is filed and when it appears in state agency databases. Employers are required to file 60 days before the layoff event, but states vary in how quickly they publish the filings. Our coverage reflects the states with filings on record, not a complete national census, and is not guaranteed to capture every filing in real-time.

We process new state data as it becomes available and update our database accordingly. Our goal is to be within 30 days of the most recent available state-level data for each jurisdiction we track.

Editorial Independence & Methodology

PlainLayoffs is a data-publishing site. Raw data from state WARN Act filings, the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration, California EDD, and other state workforce agencies is ingested programmatically, normalized against the source structure, and rendered into employer, industry, and state profiles directly from our database. The figures are computed from the filed notices, not hand-typed. PlainLayoffs is published by Kiznis Studio, an independent data-engineering studio (solo-operated), and is responsible for the pipeline, the methodology, the written guides, and corrections. See our editorial & corrections policy for how pages are produced and how to flag an error.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from employers, industry groups, or any entity covered on this site. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations & Disclaimers

WARN Act data has inherent limitations that users should understand before drawing conclusions:

• Coverage threshold: Employers with fewer than 100 employees are not required to file federal WARN notices, so small business layoffs are not captured. Some states have lower thresholds under mini-WARN laws.
• Compliance gaps: Some employers required to file do not do so. Federal WARN enforcement is through private litigation, not government enforcement, so compliance is not universal.
• State variation: State reporting systems vary in completeness and timeliness. Some states publish comprehensive data; others provide minimal information.
• Planned vs. actual: Worker counts represent planned layoffs as reported in the WARN notice, not actual outcomes. Some affected workers may be transferred, retained, or find new positions before the layoff date.

PlainLayoffs does not provide legal, financial, or employment advice. WARN Act data and layoff statistics are provided for informational purposes only. Workers facing layoffs should consult qualified employment attorneys and their state workforce agency for guidance specific to their situation.

Contact

For data corrections, press inquiries, or general feedback, email hello@plainlayoffs.com.

We welcome reports of missing WARN notices, company name corrections, questions about methodology, and suggestions for additional data coverage.