When and where is the next mass layoff? Use our tracker
When and where is the next mass layoff? Use our tracker
Dian Zhang and Yoonserk Pyun, USA TODAYThu, March 19, 2026 at 9:07 AM UTC
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Hundreds of thousands of American workers are set to lose their jobs in the coming weeks. That includes employees from Amazon, which announced more than 16,000 job cuts back in January, Meta, Pinterest and more.
How do we know?
Federal law requires employers with 100 or more full-time workers to send states written notice at least 60 days before they lay off workers. Experts like economist Kurt Lunsford of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland say these filings under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act can signal trouble earlier than other job indicators.
They’re not called WARN notices for nothing.
"It has this signal of coming layoffs. It's data that's relatively up to date," Lunsford said, noting that WARN notices can be available within days while some other official government statistics may lag "for several weeks or even a couple months."
A USA TODAY analysis of WARN notices filed in 44 states showed mass layoffs last year in the United States reached their highest level since the unprecedented pandemic year of 2020, with notices tallying more than 413,000 workers impacted by large-scale workforce reductions.
The surge represents a 20% increase from 2024, when more than 345,000 employees lost their jobs through announced mass layoffs. The number of mass layoff notices also climbed from nearly 4,000 in 2024 to more than 5,000 last year.
To be sure, that’s not the total toll of layoffs. WARN notices don’t apply to medium and small companies. Employers in the U.S. announced more than 1.2 million job cuts in total in 2025, the highest annual job cuts total since 2010, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement and consulting firm.
USA TODAY's data team collects WARN notices daily from most state labor departments and the District of Columbia. Seven states – Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming – do not provide public access or have incompatible data formats. The tracker reflects information reported in the filings themselves. Because states set their own reporting policies, some notice filings can lag weeks behind a mass layoff announcement, and companies may later amend or withdraw filings, making the tracker figures fluctuate as the data is refreshed.
Still, the notices offer a window into what’s happening at larger firms.
On October 28, 2025, Amazon cut 14,000 corporate jobs, filing multiple WARN notices to different states on the same date.
Gordon McCreary, a 28-year-old Amazon software engineer based in Seattle knew the layoff was coming. Months before the announcement, the pressure had become relentless with tight deadlines, late nights, and weekend work. On the day before the layoffs, he said, the whole office was talking nonstop about the layoff rumor.
Amazon logo is seen in this illustration created on Feb. 11, 2025.
“By the time the layoff happened, I think about half of my team had taken a disability leave or family medical leave," McCreary recalled. His team was in charge of Rufus, Amazon's AI shopping assistant.
A total of 69 employees were affected in McCreary’s office, according to the WARN notice Amazon filed Oct. 28, while the company reported a total of 2,023 layoffs in all of Washington.
Jenna Wright, a 30-year-old Chicago-based Amazon employee, didn’t see it coming at all. She had just been promoted to senior program manager, overseeing the Amazon chatbot for customer service and its expansion to new countries, 27 days prior to the layoff.
Wright joined Amazon right after college and had been with the company for eight years.
“I felt a little deceived,” Wright said. “I gave eight and a half years, pretty much my entire career life, fresh out of college, to this company. I understand from a business standpoint. You know, business is business, but such a very fast, shocking decision was not expected."
USA TODAY’s database of mass layoffs, daily, includes more than 51,000 WARN notices from 44 states. The earliest were filed in the 1990s. Users can sort the layoff notices by state, company, and notice date to see where, when and why the layoffs are happening.
What's happening with job cuts in 2026?
The first two months of 2026 showed mixed signals on the U.S. job market.
The report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, shows that employers announced more than 108,000 job cuts in January. That’s a 118% increase from the same month last year and the highest January figure since 2009. In February, that number dropped to about 48,000.
“February’s dip is a nice reprieve from the elevated job cut plans to start the year. With U.S. involvement in a growing war in Iran, the end of Q1 may bring more layoff plans as companies tighten belts amid uncertainty and higher costs,” said Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer of the company, in its latest report.
This company’s figures are significantly higher than WARN numbers because they track not only government filings but also company announcements, conference calls, and internal client data, Colleen Blumenfeld, vice president of public relations of the company, explained to USA TODAY through an email.
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Federal data, however, shows a reverse trend.
U.S. employers added about 126,000 jobs in January 2026, outperforming economists’ expectations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report released this month. But the latest report shows that in February, the U.S. economy shed 92,000 jobs.
California leads in mass layoffs
California has led the nation in mass layoffs, with more than 16,000 WARN notices recorded in the database. That’s nearly three times more than second-place Illinois with nearly 5,000 notices.
In 2025 alone, employers in California filed more than 1,500 mass layoff notices, impacting more than 86,000 workers, far exceeding other states:
Top 5 States by number of layoffs in WARN notices in 2025:
California: at least 86,000 workers
Washington: at least 31,000 workers
Texas: at least 26,000 workers
Florida: at least 20,200 workers
New York: at least 20,000 workers
Is AI leading to layoffs?
The technology sector has been a major driver of mass layoffs in recent years, with giants like Amazon, Meta and Microsoft filing hundreds of WARN notices as they restructure operations and cut costs.
While none of the WARN notices recorded artificial intelligence as a reason for layoffs, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, tracked over 7,000 job cuts in January due to AI. The company’s CEO suggested AI as a future threat to jobs, but the current rounds of job cuts look more like a correction for over-hiring, its report said.
Some tech workers expressed concerns about their career stability and are rethinking their career paths.
"I don't know, especially with all the changes from AI, changing the way we do work, if software engineering is even going to still be a thing five years from now," McCreary said. He has been searching for a job at a nonprofit or with a local government, hoping to find work that feels "more meaningful" or where “the work culture is less toxic.”
Annelies Goger, workforce policy expert with the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington D.C., argues that a lot of companies misunderstand how AI will reshape work and that companies are too quick to resort to job cuts when adaptation might be the better strategy.
"AI is changing what you do, not necessarily getting rid of a whole role," Goger said. "If we can encourage companies to take that route rather than layoffs, it'll be better for society as a whole, because it avoids that major shock of displacement and all the negative impacts of that."
What's the advantage of WARN notices?
By giving advance notice of layoffs, WARN notices are meant to act as a financial and psychological buffer. They allow workers to avoid financial commitments they can’t meet, begin job searches that often take two months or longer, and prevent “falling off a cliff financially,” said Jack Raisner, a WARN Act attorney and a law professor at St. John’s University.
Signage for a job fair is seen on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
USA TODAY’s analysis of WARN notices with both filing and layoff dates shows thousands of notices failed to provide the required 60-day notice before mass job cuts.
Yet states vary a lot on how they enforce WARN reporting requirements, and there’s no federal agency monitoring compliance.
Raisner said the date listed on a WARN notice may reflect when a company filed paperwork with the state, not when employees were actually notified, making it harder to see the true scope of WARN Act violations nationwide.
"It leaves a question mark over this subject … because there is no federal government oversight as there is for all of the other labor laws," Raisner said. "It's cloudy."
Without that early warning, job loss can be devastating.
“The abrupt termination of a job is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can have, other than a divorce or a very painful accident,” Raisner added.
The Brookings expert, Goger, who researched displaced workers, said strong early intervention could reduce the harm. “You get the best outcomes by intervening early, by trying to help people,” Goger said. “Otherwise, layoffs can spiral into financial distress, emotional strain and family crises.”
It would be rare for a big company like any Fortune 100 company to not be compliant with WARN Act today, according to Raisner. However, for workers who don’t receive proper notice or back pay, lawsuits might be the only option, a process that can take months or even years.
“Employees are very, very thankful and appreciative when they get notice,” Raisner said, “If they didn’t, somebody brings a case to protect their rights.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Live tracker for the next mass layoffs in the U.S.
Source: “AOL Money”
