Editorial & Corrections Policy

How Pages Are Produced

PlainLayoffs's employer, industry, and state pages are generated from one kind of public record: the WARN Act notices that employers file with state workforce agencies before a mass layoff or plant closing. We collect these filings directly from the agencies that publish them — including the California EDD, the Texas Workforce Commission, the Washington Employment Security Department, and Oregon WorkSource — load them into a structured database, and render each employer, industry, and state page from that database. The figures you see — workers affected, notice counts, filing dates, and the rankings built from them — are computed from the filed notices, not hand-typed and not estimated by us.

This is a data-publishing model: the same template renders thousands of pages so that every employer with a notice on record is covered consistently. We are transparent that these data pages are produced programmatically from the source filings rather than written one by one. The editorial work goes into the pipeline (how filings are sourced, de-duplicated, normalized, and computed), the methodology, and the written guides — not into hand-authoring thousands of near-identical employer pages, which would add no accuracy and invite inconsistency.

Sourcing Standards

• Primary sources only. Every layoff figure traces to a WARN Act notice published by a state labor agency or the U.S. Department of Labor. We do not republish secondhand layoff trackers or unverified press reports as data.
• Attribution in context. Each data page names its source and the filing dates near the figures, and links to the methodology that explains how counts and rankings are derived.
• Derived values are labeled. Numbers we compute ourselves — totals, averages, year-over-year changes, and rankings — are presented as our analysis of the filed notices, distinct from any single notice.
• We report what the filings record, and only that. WARN notices do not state a reason for a layoff, so we never attribute a cut to a cause (such as "AI") the filing does not contain. Where coverage is partial — the WARN program is state-administered, so not every state is represented — the page says so rather than implying a complete national census.

Update Cadence

State agencies publish new WARN notices on a rolling basis — some weekly, some monthly. We refresh our database on a regular cadence, adding new filings and updating each employer, industry, and state total as notices arrive. The most recent filing date we have loaded is reflected on the relevant pages, so you can see how current the data is. Because coverage depends on what each state publishes, newly added state sources expand the corpus over time.

Corrections Process

If a figure on PlainLayoffs looks wrong, please tell us. Because our pages are generated from published WARN filings, a genuine error almost always traces back to either the source filing or our processing of it — so this is how we handle a report:

1. Report. Email us through the contact page with the page URL and the number that looks off.
2. Verify. We compare the figure against the originating state agency's published WARN notice for that employer and date.
3. Fix at the source. If the value is wrong on our side, we correct it in the database and pipeline that generate the page — not just on the single page — so every affected page is fixed at once. If the figure faithfully reflects the filed notice, we explain that and, where useful, add context.
4. Note it. Corrections that change a published figure are reflected the next time the page rebuilds; the filing dates shown let you see which notices a page is based on.

We aim to acknowledge data-error reports within a few business days. An employer that disputes a value attributed to it can request a correction through the same channel; we reconcile the dispute against the upstream agency record before changing anything.

Editorial Independence

PlainLayoffs is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with any employer, state agency, or the U.S. Department of Labor. Our guides and analysis are not influenced by advertisers; advertising, where present, is clearly distinguishable from editorial content and never determines which employers or rankings we show. Our rankings are computed mechanically from filed notices, so no employer can pay to move up — or down — a list, or to be removed from one.

Appropriate Use

PlainLayoffs is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, employment, or career advice. A WARN notice records that an employer filed a required advance-notice of a layoff or closing; it is not a verdict on the employer's health, and the absence of a notice does not mean an employer is not cutting jobs. If you are facing a layoff or weighing a severance agreement, consult a qualified employment attorney or financial professional. See our disclaimer for details.