New York's Mini-WARN Act: 90 Days' Notice Where Federal Law Requires 60

The federal WARN Act is the floor for layoff notice in the United States, not the ceiling. Several states add their own, stricter versions — often called mini-WARN laws — and New York's is one of the most demanding. It covers smaller employers, triggers on smaller layoffs, and requires 90 days' notice instead of the federal 60.

That matters for workers in New York, and for anyone reading layoff data: a filing that would not exist under federal law alone can still be a legally required notice in New York. These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses.

Who the New York law covers

The federal WARN Act generally applies to employers with 100 or more full-time employees. New York's law lowers that bar. It applies to private employers with 50 or more full-time employees at a single site of employment in New York, or 50 or more employees who together work at least 2,000 hours per week, including overtime.

What triggers the 90-day notice

New York requires 90 days' written notice before four kinds of events:

• A plant closing — the permanent or temporary shutdown of a single site of employment, or a facility or operating unit within a site, where 25 or more full-time employees lose their jobs during a 30-day period.
• A mass layoff — an employment loss for at least 25 full-time employees who make up at least 33 percent of the full-time workforce at the site, or for 250 or more full-time employees regardless of percentage.
• A reduction in hours — a cut of more than 50 percent in hours of work during each month of any six-month period, affecting at least 25 full-time employees who make up at least 33 percent of the site's full-time workforce, or 250 or more full-time employees.
• A relocation — moving all or substantially all of an employer's operations to a site at least 50 miles away, where at least 25 full-time employees lose their jobs.

Compare that with the federal triggers: a plant closing affecting 50 or more employees, or a mass layoff of 50 or more employees making up a third of the workforce, or 500 or more. New York's 25-employee triggers mean many mid-size layoffs generate a notice in New York that would generate none under federal law alone.

Who must receive the notice

New York also widens the recipient list. Notice must go to the affected employees and their union representatives, the New York Commissioner of Labor, and the Local Workforce Investment Board for the area. In addition, employers must notify the chief elected official of the local government where the event occurs, the school district or districts in which it occurs, and each locality that provides police, firefighting, emergency medical, ambulance, or other emergency services to the site.

That last group reflects a practical concern: a sudden closure affects more than the workers. It can mean lost tax revenue for a town and a suddenly vacant property that still needs emergency coverage.

Remote workers count where they are based

Amended New York regulations that took effect in June 2023 clarified several points that matter in a remote-work era. Remote workers count as employed at the site where they are based, so a distributed team can push a site over the threshold even if few people work in the office. The amendments also addressed who owes notice when a business is sold, limited the faltering-business exception to plant closings rather than mass layoffs, and added pandemics as an example of an unforeseeable business circumstance. Employers seeking to rely on an exception must submit detailed information to the New York Department of Labor in advance and request a determination.

What happens when notice falls short

When an employer gives less notice than the law requires, affected workers can seek back pay and the value of benefits for the violation period — the days of notice that were missing. The state can also pursue civil penalties. Because New York's notice period is 90 days rather than 60, the potential exposure for a short notice is correspondingly larger.

Why this shows up in the national numbers

Layoff trackers that collect WARN filings will show more New York notices than a federal-only view would predict, precisely because the state's thresholds are lower. That is a feature of the data, not an error: New York's law surfaces layoffs that federal law would leave unrecorded. The same effect appears in other mini-WARN states, and it is one reason state-by-state comparisons of WARN figures need care.

Nationally, Layoff Atlas currently tracks 673 notices covering 63,704 reported workers in its 90-day window, with 33 worker counts unavailable, updated October 27, 2026. Washington (16,960 workers), California (13,557), Illinois (4,626), Texas (3,652), and Georgia (2,492) lead the states. The heaviest upcoming week is the week of November 24, with 9,123 reported workers. Those totals mix federal and state filings, and they describe reported plans, not confirmed job losses.

The lesson of New York's law is simple: the notice a worker receives depends on where they work, not just on how big their employer is. In New York, that means an extra 30 days, a lower headcount bar, and a longer list of officials who must be told.

Data source: Layoff Atlas