November 25 Is the Heaviest Upcoming Layoff Week: 9,555 Workers

The heaviest layoff week on the current WARN calendar is the week of November 25, 2026, with 9,555 reported workers scheduled to be affected. That week accounts for more than a quarter of all workers in the next six weeks combined, and it lands in Thanksgiving week: Thanksgiving Day falls on Thursday, November 26.

These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. WARN figures describe what employers have notified, and some plans change, shrink, or are postponed before their effective dates. Still, the shape of the calendar is striking: one very heavy week among far lighter ones.

The six-week picture

Layoff Atlas currently tracks 35,223 reported workers with effective dates across the next six weeks. The weekly breakdown is:

• Week of October 28: 8,110 workers
• Week of November 4: 3,760 workers
• Week of November 11: 6,175 workers
• Week of November 18: 5,882 workers
• Week of November 25: 9,555 workers
• Week of December 2: 1,741 workers

The week of November 25 alone makes up 27.1 percent of that six-week total. It is about two and a half times the size of the week of November 4 (3,760 workers) and about five and a half times the size of the week of December 2 (1,741 workers), the lightest week in the window.

The second-heaviest week, the week of October 28, carries 8,110 workers — still 1,445 fewer. After November 25, the calendar drops sharply: the week of December 2 is the quietest of the six, suggesting the scheduled wave eases as December begins, at least on the notices filed so far.

Why one week can spike so high

Weekly totals in WARN data are lumpy by nature. A week looks heavy not because layoffs are evenly spread, but because several employers' effective dates happen to land in the same seven-day window. Effective dates are set by each employer's notice, with no rule spreading them out. When a few large filings share a week, the total jumps; when none do, it falls.

That lumpiness is also why a single week's figure should not be read as a trend on its own. A heavy week followed by a light one usually means only that scheduled dates cluster. What makes November 25 stand out is that it is not marginally ahead of the other weeks, but clearly ahead of all five of them.

These weekly totals also leave things out: they count only workers whose effective dates are published and fall inside the window. Notices with no published effective date, or with worker counts unavailable, are excluded. Layoff Atlas currently lists 31 notices in its 90-day window with counts unavailable, so the true number affected is higher than the reported totals show.

The national backdrop

Across the 90-day notice window, Layoff Atlas currently records 671 notices covering 63,327 reported workers, with 31 counts unavailable. The data was last updated on October 27, 2026.

The states with the most reported workers in the window are Washington (16,960), California (13,427), Illinois (4,626), Texas (3,652), and Georgia (2,492). Washington and California together account for roughly half of all reported workers in the window, so shifts in either state move the national picture most.

The most recent dated filings include Acme Brick's 53-worker Montgomery, Alabama filing (notice October 26, effective December 31, 2026), DCS's 65-worker Fort Belvoir, Virginia filing (notice October 23, effective December 15, 2026), and Toter's combined 96-worker Statesville, North Carolina closure filing (notice October 23, effective December 22, 2026). None falls in the November 25 week itself: the heaviest week is built from earlier filings whose effective dates converge there, not from a single new announcement.

What to watch in the November 25 week

Three things are worth watching as that week approaches. First, whether any scheduled effective dates move: employers can postpone a layoff date with additional notice, and a postponement under 60 days requires a fresh notice referencing the earlier one. Second, whether new filings add dates inside the same week, pushing its total higher. Third, whether the drop to 1,741 workers in the week of December 2 holds, or late filings fill that week in as well.

For workers, the practical point is timing. Federal law requires at least 60 days between notice and effective date, so the notices behind the November 25 effective dates were filed weeks ago. Anyone affected should already have received notice; the week itself is when those plans take effect, not when they are announced. Rapid Response help, unemployment filing, and benefits paperwork are steps to take during the notice period, not after the effective date arrives.

Reading the numbers honestly

WARN data is the best public early-warning system for large layoffs in the United States, but it is not a census of layoffs. Small layoffs below the federal thresholds never trigger a notice, and some states require more — California and New York have lower thresholds and longer notice periods, so their data is richer. A state with few published notices may have thin reporting rather than few layoffs.

With those caveats, the November 25 figure is still a real signal: more than 9,500 workers with effective dates in a single week, in a six-week window totaling 35,223, in Thanksgiving week. It is worth watching whether the weeks after it stay as quiet as they currently look.

Data source: Layoff Atlas