Glossary
WARN Act
A US law requiring many large employers to give advance notice of plant closings and mass layoffs.
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act generally requires employers with 100 or more employees to give 60 days' written notice before a plant closing or mass layoff. Several states have their own versions with different thresholds and notice periods.
WARN notices are public records that journalists and researchers use to track layoffs as they happen.
Notices often do not say why jobs are being cut, so they rarely show whether AI played a role. Some layoffs fall below the thresholds and do not require notice at all.
Read more: our explainer