Five States Hold Nearly Two-Thirds of Reported Layoff Workers in Current WARN Data

Layoff Atlas's current 90-day WARN window contains 704 notices covering 66,156 reported workers, with 33 counts unavailable. Five states — Washington, California, Illinois, Texas and Ohio — account for 42,755 of those workers, or about 65 percent of the total. The other 46 jurisdictions in the registry share the remaining 23,401 reported workers.

That concentration is the single most important thing to understand about the national picture right now. A national total that moves up or down is, in large part, a Washington and California story first, and a five-state story second.

The five states, in order

Washington leads with 17,073 reported workers, about 26 percent of the national total. California follows with 14,224 workers, about 22 percent. Together the two states hold 31,297 workers — roughly 47 percent of all reported workers in the window.

Illinois ranks third with 4,626 workers, about 7 percent. Texas is fourth with 3,652 workers, about 6 percent, and Ohio fifth with 3,180 workers, about 5 percent. The gap between second and third place is striking: California alone has more than three times as many reported workers as Illinois, and Washington has nearly four times as many.

These rankings come from connected sources within the registry, and they describe reported workers in the current 90-day window — not every layoff in the country, and not confirmed job losses. WARN notices are reported plans, not confirmed job losses, and coverage and reporting rules vary by state.

Why concentration happens

A few large filings can move a state's total dramatically. When one filing covers thousands of workers, it can outweigh dozens of small filings elsewhere.

State reporting rules also shape the picture. Some states publish WARN notices promptly and completely; others publish less, later, or not at all in a form the registry can import. A state with a low total may have fewer reported layoffs, weaker public reporting, or both — the registry's figures alone cannot separate those two explanations.

That is why a low number should never be read as "no layoffs." The registry covers 51 jurisdictions, and 48 have imported records. Missing source coverage is not zero layoffs.

What the other 46 jurisdictions look like

Outside the top five, the average jurisdiction accounts for roughly 500 reported workers in the window — but that average hides wide variation. Some states have several thousand reported workers; others have only a handful of notices, or none at all in the current window.

This long tail matters for workers. A 50-worker closure in a small town can be the largest local employer event of the year, even though it barely registers in a national total dominated by five states. National rankings are useful for context, but they are a poor guide to local impact.

The weeks ahead, in the same picture

The concentration in states is mirrored by concentration in time. The registry's upcoming-by-week totals for the six weeks from October 25 are: 5,206 workers in the week of October 25; 4,565 in the week of November 1; 5,311 in the week of November 8; 7,781 in the week of November 15; 6,527 in the week of November 22; and 5,832 in the week of November 29. That six-week total of 35,222 workers is more than half of the entire 90-day window total, and the week of November 15 remains the heaviest week on the calendar.

Read together, the two patterns tell one story: reported layoffs in the current data are concentrated in a few states and in a few coming weeks. A reader watching only the national total would miss both.

How to read these numbers

Three cautions apply to everything in this article. First, these are reported plans, not confirmed job losses — some announced plans are later reduced, postponed or cancelled. Second, 33 notices in the window have unavailable worker counts, so the true total is higher than 66,156 by an unknown amount. Third, the 90-day window rolls forward: as older notices drop out and new ones arrive, totals can fall even in a week when new filings arrive, simply because the window moved.

Dividing 66,156 workers by 704 notices gives roughly 94 workers per notice in headline arithmetic, but that figure is only a rough guide, because the unavailable counts distort it. The more reliable picture is the distribution: a small number of very large filings, a long tail of small ones, and five states holding nearly two-thirds of the total.

For workers in the top five states, the practical message is the same as everywhere else: check whether your employer has filed a notice, note the effective date, and contact your state's Rapid Response team early. For everyone else, the message is not to be reassured by a small state total — check the local filings, because the national ranking says little about your town.

Data source: Layoff Atlas