WARN Act Rules: Who Gets 60 Days Notice Before a Layoff

The federal WARN Act requires employers with 100 or more full-time employees to give 60 days’ written notice before a plant closing or mass layoff. Covered events generally involve 50 or more job losses at one site. Workers given less notice can sue for up to 60 days of back pay and benefits, and some states have stricter laws.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act is codified at 29 U.S.C. 2101 to 2109, with Department of Labor regulations at 20 CFR Part 639. The DOL publishes guides for workers and employers on its WARN page, but no federal agency enforces the law: claims go to federal court.

Which employers have to give WARN notice?

An employer is covered if it has 100 or more employees, not counting part-time workers, or 100 or more employees who together work at least 4,000 hours a week, not counting overtime.

For WARN purposes, a part-time employee is someone who averages fewer than 20 hours a week or has worked fewer than 6 of the 12 months before notice would be due. Part-timers are entitled to notice if they lose their jobs, but they do not count toward the thresholds.

What counts as a plant closing or mass layoff?

The law covers two kinds of events, both measured at a single site of employment within any 30-day period.

Smaller rounds can add up. Under the 90-day aggregation rule, job losses at one site within any 90-day period are combined, and if the total crosses a threshold, notice was required. The employer can avoid this only by showing the cuts came from separate and distinct causes and were not meant to evade the law.

Who must receive the notice, and when?

Written notice must go out at least 60 days before the closing or layoff to three parties:

1. each affected employee, or their union representative if they have one;
2. the state’s dislocated worker unit (the state rapid response office);
3. the chief elected official of the local government where the site is located.

When a business is sold, the seller is responsible for notice of any closing or layoff up to the date of the sale, and the buyer after that. The seller’s employees, other than part-timers, are treated as the buyer’s employees right after the sale, so a sale by itself is not a layoff under WARN.

Are there exceptions to the 60-day rule?

Yes. The law allows shorter notice in three situations, listed in 29 U.S.C. 2102(b). In each case the employer must still give as much notice as it can, with a short explanation of why the period was shorter.

• Faltering company: for plant closings only, when the employer was actively seeking money or business that would have avoided the shutdown and reasonably believed that giving notice would have prevented it.
• Unforeseeable business circumstances: when the closing or layoff was caused by business conditions that were not reasonably foreseeable when notice would have been due.
• Natural disaster: no advance notice is required when a flood, earthquake or similar disaster causes the job losses.

What can workers recover if notice was not given?

Each worker who should have been notified can recover back pay and benefits for each day of the violation, up to 60 days, and never more than half the number of days they were employed.

• Back pay is figured at the higher of the worker’s average regular rate over the last three years or their final regular rate.
• Benefits include medical expenses that the employee benefit plan would have covered.
• Wages paid during the violation period, and voluntary unconditional payments such as some severance, reduce the amount owed.
• Local governments can seek a civil penalty of up to $500 a day, unless the employer pays workers what it owes within three weeks of the closing or layoff.
• A court may award attorney’s fees to the winning side and may reduce damages if the employer acted in good faith.

Severance agreements often ask workers to sign a release of claims, which can include WARN claims. Our guide to severance pay rules covers what to check before signing.

Which states have stricter WARN laws?

Several states have their own “mini-WARN” laws with lower thresholds or longer notice. As of November 2026, three of the largest are:

For other states, contact the state labor department or dislocated worker unit, which also runs rapid response services for laid-off workers.

How can I look up WARN notices filed in my state?

There is no federal WARN database; states publish the notices they receive. New York has a searchable WARN Dashboard filterable by county and industry. California’s Employment Development Department posts WARN reports on its Layoff Services page, and New Jersey posts yearly notice archives on its labor department site. Public companies may also disclose large cuts in an 8-K under Item 2.05; our guide on how to read an 8-K shows where.

Bottom line

If you received a WARN notice, the date on it starts your 60-day (or state) clock, and many states use the notice to trigger rapid response help with job search and benefits. File for unemployment as soon as your last day passes; our guide to unemployment benefits after a layoff explains how pay in lieu of notice and severance can affect benefits, which varies by state.

FAQ

Can my employer pay me instead of giving 60 days’ notice?

Federal WARN has no formal pay-in-lieu option, but paying wages and benefits for the notice period reduces the back pay owed, which can leave little or nothing to recover. New Jersey’s law adds mandatory severance on top.

Does WARN apply to remote workers?

Remote employees are generally assigned to the site they report to or receive assignments from, so they can count toward that site’s numbers. How this applies to a specific layoff is a question for an employment attorney.

How long do I have to file a WARN lawsuit?

The federal WARN Act does not set its own deadline, so courts borrow a period from a similar state law, which varies. Ask an employment attorney soon after the layoff.