December 20, 2026: Three WARN Filings, 934 Workers — What One Effective Date Looks Like

WARN data is usually read as a running total: how many notices, how many workers. Read it a different way — by effective date — and patterns emerge. Right now, one calendar date stands out. Three separate employers, in three different states, all list December 20, 2026 as the effective date of their planned layoffs. Together they cover 934 reported workers.

The three filings

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream — Howard County, Maryland: 803 workers. The largest single filing currently visible in the registry. The notice was filed on October 19, 2026, and the action is recorded as temporary, taking effect December 20. Maryland's record for this filing places the site in the Laurel area.

DSquared Hospitality, doing business as Sidekicks Pub — Bellevue, Washington: 83 workers. A permanent closure filing. The notice was filed on October 21, 2026 — exactly 60 days before the effective date, matching the federal WARN Act's minimum notice period.

Republic Amusements — Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: 48 workers. Also effective December 20. This record was recently imported without a published notice date, which is common: some records enter the registry with an effective date but no notice date attached.

Three employers, three states, one date: 934 workers.

What an effective date actually means

A WARN filing carries two dates, and they answer different questions. The notice date is when the employer told workers and the state. The effective date is when the layoff or closure is scheduled to happen. Everything in this article is about effective dates — the dates by which employers say the separations will occur.

That also means December 20 is a forecast, not a count of people already out of work. WARN notices describe reported plans, not confirmed job losses. Plans change: employers cancel or shrink filings, workers are recalled, temporary actions end. Treat the 934 figure as the scheduled scale of that day's events, not a tally of confirmed separations.

How December is filling in

December 20 is not the only December date taking shape. The registry currently shows effective dates clustering through the month: Ask Foods in Palmyra, Pennsylvania (96 workers, December 1), The Andersons in Montgomery, Alabama (64 workers, December 2), Starbucks in Philadelphia (18 workers, December 6), Builders FirstSource in Jacksonville, Florida (82 workers, December 12), FTGU in Conover, North Carolina (93 workers, December 16), First Transit in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (88 workers, December 18) and Behlen Building Systems in Sarasota, Florida (55 workers, also December 18).

December 20's 934 workers make it the single busiest December day currently on the books — by a wide margin, because one filing (Dreyer's 803) dominates it. Single-day spikes like this are worth reading carefully: they often reflect one large employer's schedule rather than a broad wave.

The national picture behind the date

As of October 23, 2026, the registry holds 699 WARN notices covering 65,791 reported workers in the current 90-day window, with 33 notices lacking worker counts. The heaviest states by reported workers are Washington (16,938), California (14,224), Illinois (4,626), Texas (3,652) and Ohio (3,180).

The weeks ahead show the real concentration of upcoming action: the week of October 30 carries 8,520 scheduled workers, November 13 carries 8,744 — the heaviest week on the calendar — followed by 7,181 the week of November 20. December 20's 934 workers are significant for a single day, but the November weeks remain the period's main events.

A seasonal footnote

Filings scheduled for mid-to-late December deserve one extra note: seasonality. Temporary filings timed to the holiday production cycle are a normal feature of WARN data, and Dreyer's — an ice cream manufacturer — has a history of seasonal temporary filings in the registry. A December effective date can mean holiday-season restructuring rather than a permanent shutdown. The filing itself doesn't always say which.

Reading one date at a time

Most WARN coverage chases the biggest single filing. But effective-date clustering tells a different story: which days employers are actually planning around. Right now, that story is November 13 for weeks — and December 20 for single days. Both are worth watching as the dates approach, because the gap between a scheduled layoff and a confirmed one is where WARN data gets honest.

Data source: Layoff Atlas