recession.world · chart
US Layoffs by State
Workers affected by WARN filings and large workforce reductions in the last 12 months.
Key takeaway: Virginia leads US states with 16,095 workers affected by layoffs in the last 12 months.
What this chart shows
Total workers affected by layoff events, grouped by the state where the filing occurred. Only states with active data coverage are included — we ingest WARN Act notices from California, Texas, and Virginia directly, plus SEC 8-K filings and press releases for national coverage. Counts exclude obvious parser errors (values above 200,000 or below 1).
Why state-level data matters
WARN Act filings are submitted to the state where the affected worksite is located, not the company's headquarters. That makes state rankings a cleaner read on where actual jobs are being lost — a California-headquartered company closing a Dallas fulfillment center shows up in Texas, which is what matters for regional labor markets, unemployment insurance pressure, and local policy response.
Data sources
This chart aggregates from three pipelines: (1) state WARN Act portals (CA EDD, TX Workforce Commission, VA WARN — scraped hourly), (2) SEC 8-K filings mentioning restructuring or workforce reductions, (3) press-release monitoring for large layoff announcements. Gaps: states without active WARN adapters rely on SEC + press coverage, which under-counts small-to-mid layoffs.
How to read it
Y-axis shows states ordered by total workers affected. A state with few large filings can outrank a state with many small ones — hover any bar to see filing count alongside worker count. A state missing from this list usually means zero qualifying filings in the window, OR that we don't yet have an adapter for its WARN portal.
Frequently asked questions
Why isn't my state listed?
Either your state had no qualifying filings in the last 12 months, or we don't have an active WARN adapter for it yet. We currently ingest CA, TX, and VA directly; other states are picked up indirectly via SEC filings and press coverage.
How often is this chart updated?
The underlying data refreshes continuously as our adapters run, and this page regenerates daily. The timestamp in the top-right reflects the last refresh.
Is this the same as the BLS unemployment rate?
No. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a household survey with a several-week lag. This chart is a real-time count of actual workforce-reduction filings — different methodology, different cadence, complementary signal.