New Jersey Layoffs November 2026: WARN Numbers Explained

New Jersey has 142 WARN notices reporting 18,011 workers so far in 2026, according to Layoff Atlas. That is already well ahead of the whole of 2025, when the state recorded 90 notices and 13,105 reported workers. And the pipeline is not empty: nine more notices, covering 1,429 workers, already carry effective dates in 2027.

These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. WARN notices are advance filings employers make with the state before a qualifying mass layoff or plant closure. They describe what an employer plans to do, and plans can change. But taken together, they are the best public early signal of where layoffs are landing.

The year in numbers

The state's full archive holds 2,346 non-cancelled imported WARN notices reporting 376,962 workers. Eighteen notices have no worker count attached, so the true totals are slightly higher than the published figures.

Year by year, the pattern is clear:

• 2026: 142 notices, 18,011 workers
• 2025: 90 notices, 13,105 workers
• 2024: 98 notices, 14,450 workers
• 2023: 106 notices, 11,607 workers
• 2020: 226 notices, 74,329 workers

The 2020 spike, when the pandemic shut workplaces across the state, remains by far the largest year on record. But outside that outlier, 2026 is now the heaviest year in the archive for reported workers. Notices are up about 58 percent on 2025, and reported workers are up about 37 percent. The average filing in 2026 covers about 127 workers, a little smaller than the 2025 average of about 146 — so the rise is driven more by the number of filings than by a few giant ones.

What is driving the 2026 total

The single largest New Jersey filing in the current data is The Children's Place, a 732-worker notice with an effective date of February 4, 2027. Its locality is not listed in the public record. On its own, it accounts for just over half of all the workers New Jersey has scheduled for 2027 so far.

The other large recent filings are smaller but still notable:

• JPMorgan Chase, 91 workers, Jersey City, effective October 30, 2026
• Comcast, 119 workers, effective January 27, 2027
• Conduent, 113 workers, Newark area
• Mars, 55 workers

Twenty-four New Jersey notices have future effective dates, so scheduled layoffs stretch well into early 2027 — and the Children's Place filing is most of the 2027 total.

New Jersey's stricter rules

New Jersey is one of the few states with its own mini-WARN law that goes further than the federal WARN Act. Under the federal law, covered employers must give 60 days' notice before a mass layoff or plant closure. New Jersey requires 90 days. The state law also requires severance pay — one week per year of service — when a covered layoff happens, something the federal law does not require.

That matters for how to read the numbers: a New Jersey filing appears in the registry earlier, relative to its effective date, than one in a federal-only state, and workers get a longer runway plus a severance entitlement the federal law alone would not give them.

New Jersey in the national picture

Nationally, the registry currently shows 694 notices and 64,044 reported workers in the 90-day window, with 30 counts unavailable. California leads with 21,514 reported workers, followed by Washington with 17,411. Illinois (3,432), Texas (2,750), and Maryland (2,475) round out the top five.

New Jersey is not in the national top five for the current 90-day window, because that window counts only recently published notices. Its full-year 2026 total of 18,011 workers is larger than any top-five state's 90-day figure except California and Washington — the difference is timing, with much of New Jersey's 2026 activity filed earlier in the year.

The six weeks ahead nationally are heavy. The week of November 9 has 6,473 workers scheduled, followed by 6,202 in the week of November 16, 6,207 in the week of November 23, and 5,916 in the week of November 30. The week of December 7 drops sharply to 898, before the week of December 14 jumps back to 6,274. New Jersey's share of that calendar is concentrated in early 2027, with the Children's Place filing the largest single piece.

How to read New Jersey's numbers

Three caveats apply to everything above. First, these are reported plans, not confirmed job losses: some filings are later cancelled, reduced, or delayed, and the registry excludes cancelled records. Second, 18 New Jersey notices carry no worker count, so the totals understate the real scale. Third, coverage depends on the state's publication of its filings; a quiet feed is not the same as no layoffs.

For workers, the practical point is the notice period. A New Jersey worker named in a WARN filing should expect at least 90 days between the notice and the effective date, plus severance of one week per year of service under the state law. That is more protection than the federal 60-day standard provides, and it is worth confirming in writing with the employer.

The registry will keep updating as new filings arrive. The next numbers to watch are the December effective dates — and whether the 2027 pipeline grows beyond the nine notices already on the books.

Data source: Layoff Atlas