Minnesota's 2026 WARN record is one of the thinnest in the Layoff Atlas registry — and the reason is not that Minnesota employers are immune to layoffs. Through early October, the registry holds 29 WARN notices reporting 412 affected workers in Minnesota for 2026, a figure that sits near the bottom of all 50 states. The story here is less about a calm labor market and more about missing data. As with every number in this article, these are reported plans, not confirmed job losses: a filed notice is an advance warning of a qualifying mass layoff or closure, not proof that every listed worker was let go.
The headline numbers
Minnesota's full imported archive contains 482 non-cancelled WARN notices reporting 59,100 workers affected across all years. The pandemic year dominates, as it does almost everywhere: 2020 alone accounts for 154 notices and 18,941 reported workers.
More recent years:
- 2026: 29 notices · 412 reported workers
- 2025: 21 notices · 2,511 reported workers
- 2024: 29 notices · 2,017 reported workers
- 2023: 28 notices · 4,986 reported workers
The 2026 total looks strikingly small next to 2025's 2,511 — but take it with a grain of salt. Of the 482 Minnesota notices in the archive, only 25 are direct government records; the other 457 are attributed secondary reports. Minnesota's official records frequently carry no worker count at all, so the "412 workers" figure understates reality. Twenty-nine Minnesota notices have unavailable worker counts, and most 2026 filings in the state table show "Unavailable" rather than a number. The site lists Minnesota as having partial coverage, with the last successful source check on October 10, 2026.
The 2026 filings with real numbers
Of the filings that do carry counts, one dominates the year: Dependable Home Healthcare reported a 406-worker closure in St. Paul, effective January 3, 2026 — essentially the entire 2026 worker total in a single notice.
The other countable 2026 filings are much smaller:
- Chartwells SCSU (St. Cloud) — 153 workers, effective July 1, 2026
- First Student (Plymouth) — 125 workers, notice filed May 21, 2026
- Chartwells SMSU (Marshall) — 64 workers, effective July 1, 2026
- First Student (Red Wing) — 49 workers, notice filed April 9, 2026
- Main Steet Sports Group (Minneapolis) — 20 workers, closure effective April 14, 2026
- Nordstrom Credit Operations (Centennial) — 4 workers, effective March 1, 2026
- Vestis Services (Hibbing) — 1 worker, effective August 15, 2026
The two Chartwells filings point to campus dining contracts at St. Cloud State and Southwest Minnesota State; the First Student notices cover school-bus operations. None of these are megafilings — Minnesota's 2026 story is a long tail of small events, many without published counts.
What's coming: one notice on the horizon
Only one Minnesota notice currently carries a future effective date: Revol Greens MN, a closure effective October 15, 2026, filed as an amended notice on September 30. Its worker count is not published. Pearson's Candy had an effective date of September 28, 2026 — now past.
Why the numbers look so small
Three caveats keep this article honest. First, 2026 is measured on notice dates, so late-year filings may not have arrived yet. Second, Minnesota's direct government records often omit worker counts, which mechanically depresses the "reported workers" total — 412 is a floor, not a census. Third, WARN only captures qualifying events: plant closures and mass layoffs above the legal threshold. Smaller cuts, gradual attrition, and contractor losses never appear in the data at all.
The honest read: Minnesota's 2026 WARN picture is dominated by one 406-worker closure, a scattering of small education- and food-service filings, and a data gap that makes the state total look calmer than the labor market probably is. Check the on-site Minnesota page for the current table — and treat the missing counts as the loudest signal in the data.
Data source: Layoff Atlas
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