New Jersey's 2026 WARN data tells a two-part story: employers are filing notices at a much faster pace than last year, while the average filing size has stayed roughly flat. As of October 9, 2026, the Layoff Atlas registry holds 141 New Jersey WARN notices covering 17,913 reported workers so far this year. All-time, the registry records 2,340 non-cancelled New Jersey notices reporting 375,784 workers affected.
These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses — a filed notice does not mean every listed worker is actually let go. But they are the most reliable public signal of where New Jersey layoffs are concentrated.
2026 IN CONTEXT: FILINGS SURGING PAST 2025
Comparing this year's numbers against recent full years shows the shift clearly:
- 2026 (year to date): 141 notices · 17,913 reported workers
- 2025 (full year): 90 notices · 13,105 reported workers
- 2024 (full year): 98 notices · 14,450 reported workers
- 2023 (full year): 106 notices · 11,607 reported workers
The standout figure is the notice count. With nearly three months still left in 2026, New Jersey employers have already filed 57% more notices than in all of 2025. The worker total is 37% above 2025's full-year figure. 2026 is on pace to be the heaviest WARN year for New Jersey since 2020, when the pandemic drove 226 notices.
Average filing size is broadly stable: about 127 workers per notice in 2026, versus roughly 146 in 2025 and 147 in 2024. So New Jersey's 2026 story is a higher volume of mid-sized reductions, not a wave of mega-filings.
WHAT THE RECENT HISTORY SAYS
After the pandemic-era surge (226 notices, 74,329 workers in 2020), filings dropped sharply in 2021–2022, then settled into a lower band of 90–106 notices per year through 2025. The 2026 jump to 141 notices marks the first time since 2020 that New Jersey has exceeded 110 filings in a year. 26 New Jersey notices currently carry future effective dates — layoffs that are scheduled but have not taken effect yet. And 18 notices have unavailable worker counts, so the true worker total is somewhat higher than 17,913.
NATIONAL CONTEXT
Nationally, the current 90-day WARN window covers 731 notices and 67,559 reported workers. The heaviest states in that window are Washington (16,776 workers), California (15,682), Illinois (4,772), Texas (3,842), and Ohio (3,224). New Jersey's 2026 year-to-date total of 17,913 reported workers is substantial by national comparison, even though different states' totals are measured over different windows.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR THE REST OF 2026
Two things determine whether 2026 becomes a genuinely severe year for New Jersey or just an active one. First, the pace of new filings: if the current filing rate holds through December, New Jersey could approach or exceed 200 notices. Second, filing size: a handful of large notices in Q4 could push the worker total well above the 2025 mark. New Jersey is also one of the states with its own mini-WARN law, which extends notice requirements beyond the federal baseline, so its totals are not perfectly comparable with states relying on federal rules alone.
As always: WARN notices are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. Filings can be amended, postponed, or cancelled, and reporting rules vary by state. But as an early-warning system for where layoffs are hitting, New Jersey's 2026 data is flashing a clear signal: more employers cutting, and cutting more often.
Data source: Layoff Atlas (https://layoffatlas.com).
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