Minnesota Layoffs November 2026: WARN Numbers Explained

Minnesota's 2026 layoff filings tell a strange story: more notices than last year, but far fewer reported workers. The state's WARN archive records 32 notices covering 412 workers so far in 2026, against 21 notices and 2,511 workers in all of 2025. That is the lowest reported total in any year since 2017 — and almost certainly an undercount.

Nationally, the picture is busier. Layoff Atlas tracks 700 WARN notices reporting 64,252 workers in the current 90-day window, with 30 filings carrying no worker count at all. California leads with 21,514 reported workers, followed by Washington at 17,411. Minnesota sits far down that ranking — not because nothing is happening, but because so much of its filing data arrives without a headcount attached.

The 2026 picture in Minnesota

Minnesota has 485 non-cancelled WARN notices in the Layoff Atlas archive, reporting 59,100 workers in total. In 2026, the state has logged 32 notices and 412 reported workers — about 13 workers per filing, a figure that looks small only because most of the filings behind it carry no number at all.

Look at the last 365 days of official filings and the gap becomes clear. Minnesota recorded 27 eligible official filings in that period, reporting just 174 workers — and 25 of those 27 filings had no worker count. The newest official notice is dated October 29, 2026, a closure filing from Family Endeavors with no worker count listed. When nine out of ten recent filings omit the headcount, the reported total measures disclosure, not layoffs.

Across the full archive, 32 notices have unavailable counts, and only 28 of the 485 records are direct government filings; the other 457 are attributed secondary records.

A quiet year by history

Set 2026 against recent years and the drop is stark: 2,511 workers in 2025, 2,017 in 2024, 4,986 in 2023, 1,184 in 2022, 1,598 in 2021, and 18,941 across 154 notices in the pandemic year of 2020.

The 2026 total of 412 is the lowest since 2017, when 263 workers were reported. But the comparison is uneven: in 2025 the average filing reported about 120 workers, against about 13 this year. That collapse is not evidence that Minnesota employers suddenly started laying off a dozen people at a time. It is evidence that the count field is mostly blank.

The number of notices, meanwhile, went up — from 21 in 2025 to 32 so far in 2026. More filings, fewer reported workers: activity has not fallen off a cliff, but visibility has.

The filings with numbers

A handful of 2026 filings do carry headcounts, and they sketch where the reported cuts landed. Chartwells SCSU in St. Cloud reported 153 workers effective July 1, 2026, and Chartwells SMSU in Marshall reported 64 on the same date. First Student in Plymouth reported a 125-worker layoff, noticed May 21, 2026. Vestis Services in Hibbing reported a single worker effective August 15. Together, those four filings account for 343 of the 412 workers reported all year — about 83 percent of the state's 2026 total.

The rest of the year's official filings are names without numbers. Pearson's Candy Company filed amended notices in July, September and October. Revol Greens MN filed closures in August, September and October. Lincoln Industries, Heliene USA and UCare filed closures in August, and SMBC Manubank filed a layoff notice the same month. Acuity Brands Lighting filed closures in June and July. Nexus Family Healing in East Bethel and Ideal US Talent Systems Worker OpCo filed temporary layoff notices in May. Each of those filings represents real workers receiving notice; the registry simply cannot say how many.

What the law requires in Minnesota

Minnesota has no state mini-WARN law, so the federal WARN Act governs. Employers with 100 or more full-time workers must give 60 days' written notice before a plant closing or a mass layoff — generally 50 or more workers if they make up at least a third of the workforce, or 500 or more regardless of percentage.

The federal law sets a floor, not a full picture. It does not require a headcount in every state filing, and Minnesota's reporting shows how much falls through that gap. Workers who receive a notice should check the effective date, the reason given, and whether the filing is a closure, a layoff or a temporary action — the type affects unemployment eligibility and recall rights.

What to watch

There is nothing on Minnesota's forward calendar. The state has zero notices with future effective dates, so no scheduled layoffs are currently visible in the registry. That is unusual, and it means the next signal will be a new notice, not a scheduled effective date.

The weeks ahead nationally are heavy: more than 6,000 workers are scheduled in each of the weeks of November 16, November 23 and December 14. Minnesota's share of those weeks is currently zero, but a single large filing can change that overnight.

The number to watch is not the 412. It is the count of filings arriving without a headcount. Until Minnesota's notices start carrying numbers again, the state's reported total will keep understating the layoffs its own registry is recording.

These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. Coverage and reporting rules vary by state, and missing counts are not zero layoffs.

Data source: Layoff Atlas.