Maine's Mini-WARN Act: 90 Days' Notice and Mandatory Severance, Explained

Federal WARN law gives workers 60 days' notice of a qualifying plant closing or mass layoff. Maine gives more time — and something federal law does not give at all: statutory severance. Under Maine's mini-WARN law, 26 M.R.S. § 625-B, an employer closing or relocating a covered establishment must give 90 days' written notice, and one closing or carrying out a mass layoff owes eligible workers one week's pay per year worked.

That matters at the margins: an employer can satisfy federal WARN and still violate Maine law by giving only 60 days' notice of a closing.

Who the law covers

The law applies to a "covered establishment": a facility that employed 100 or more people at any point in the preceding 12 months. The test looks at the establishment, not the whole company — a plant that recently dipped below 100 can still be covered.

Three events trigger the law: a closing (substantially ceasing operations), a relocation (moving all or substantially all operations 100 or more miles away), or a mass layoff (a reduction, not caused by a closing, lasting at least six months and affecting at least 33 percent of the workforce and at least 50 employees, or 500 or more employees).

The 90-day notice rule

Anyone proposing to relocate or close a covered establishment must notify the director of the Maine Department of Labor in writing at least 90 days beforehand. A proposed closing also requires written notice to the affected employees and the municipal officers of the town or city where it is located, at least 90 days before the closing, unless the director waives it.

The 90-day period comes from a 2019 amendment that raised it from 60 days — one of the longest state notice periods in the country.

Mass layoffs work differently: the employer must notify the director as far in advance as practicable, and no later than within seven days of the layoff, reporting the expected duration and whether it is definite or indefinite. The director can then require reports at least every 30 days on whether the layoff amounts to a closing or whether recall is likely.

The severance payment

Maine is one of only a few states that require severance by statute. An employer that closes a covered establishment or carries out a mass layoff there owes eligible employees one week's pay for each year of employment, including partial years. The payment is on top of final wages and must be paid within one regular pay period after the last full day of work.

A "week's pay" is the employee's gross earnings over the previous 12 months divided by the weeks in which the employee received earnings in that period.

Not every worker qualifies: an eligible employee needs at least three years of continuous employment, must not have been terminated for cause, and must not have accepted another job with the same employer. Workers with fewer than three years get no statutory severance.

No severance is owed if the closing or mass layoff was necessitated by a physical calamity or a government agency's final order, or if the employee is actually paid greater severance under an express contract. Bankruptcy protection under Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 does not, by itself, exempt an establishment.

Violating the closing-notice requirement is a civil violation punishable by a fine of up to $500, except where the closing was necessitated by a calamity or government order, or the failure was due to unforeseen circumstances. A fine may not be collected if collecting it would prevent the employer from paying the severance it owes.

What Maine's numbers show

Maine's WARN record is thin, and its recent data comes almost entirely from secondary sources. Layoff Atlas records 91 non-cancelled Maine notices reporting 8,302 workers, with no future effective dates. In 2026 so far: 6 notices and 378 workers, including 115 at Pride Manufacturing and Gathr Outdoors in Burnham in January, 102 at Host International in Portland in August, and 100 at SP+ Parking in Portland in June. The newest official notice date is May 16, 2025, and 9 notices have unavailable counts.

That thinness is a data-quality warning, not a claim that Maine has few layoffs: with no eligible official filing in the last 365 days, the figures rest on 5 direct government records and 86 attributed secondary records. Missing coverage is not zero layoffs, and these are reported plans, not confirmed job losses.

Nationally, the current 90-day window holds 673 notices affecting 63,421 reported workers, with 31 counts unavailable. Washington leads with 17,050, followed by California with 13,427. The heaviest upcoming week is the week of November 25, with 9,645 workers scheduled.

How to read a Maine notice

If you work at a Maine plant facing a closing, ask: was it a covered establishment that employed 100 or more people in the last year? Did the employer give the director, employees, and municipal officers 90 days' written notice? For a mass layoff, was the director notified within seven days? And with three or more years there, were you paid one week's pay per year within one pay period of your last day?

Federal WARN sets the floor. Maine raises it: 30 extra days of notice, and a severance check federal law never requires.

Data source: Layoff Atlas