Week Ahead: December 1 Is the Lightest Upcoming Layoff Week, With 2,218 Workers Scheduled

The layoff calendar quiets down at the start of December. The week of December 1 has 2,218 workers with scheduled effective dates in Layoff Atlas's current six-week outlook, making it the lightest week in that window — and a sharp contrast with the week just before it.

The six weeks currently on the calendar total 35,305 scheduled workers. The week of November 24 alone accounts for 9,123 of them, more than four times the December 1 figure. The full outlook looks like this:

• Week of October 27: 7,743 workers
• Week of November 3: 2,827 workers
• Week of November 10: 6,838 workers
• Week of November 17: 6,556 workers
• Week of November 24: 9,123 workers
• Week of December 1: 2,218 workers

December 1 is not just the lightest week in this window; it is the only week below 2,800 workers. November 3, the second-lightest week, comes in at 2,827. Every other week in the outlook sits above 6,500.

A quiet week after a heavy one

The shape of the calendar matters as much as any single total. Workers whose effective dates fall in the week of November 24 face the heaviest week in the outlook, and then the schedule drops by roughly three-quarters in a single week. That kind of drop does not mean layoffs have stopped. It means that, as of the latest data, very few new effective dates have been filed for the first week of December so far.

WARN filings arrive on a rolling basis, and the far end of any outlook is always the thinnest. Employers file notices weeks or months ahead of effective dates, so a week five or six weeks out can look light simply because many of its filings have not been made yet. The December 1 figure should be read as a snapshot of what is currently scheduled, not as a forecast that December will stay quiet.

Still, the contrast is useful. The two lightest weeks in the outlook — November 3 and December 1 — bookend the heaviest stretch of the late-autumn calendar. Between them sit three weeks above 6,500 workers, peaking at 9,123 in the week of November 24.

What is already on the December 1 calendar

Two filings with December 1 effective dates were already in the data before this week: Ask Foods, a 96-worker closure filing in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, and the Pavilion long-term care facility closure in Bradford, Pennsylvania, covering 80 workers. Together they account for 176 of the December 1 week's 2,218 workers. The remainder comes from filings whose details are not broken out on the homepage summary, which is a reminder of how these weekly totals work: they aggregate every filing with an effective date in that week, not just the largest names.

That is also why weekly totals move. A single large filing can lift a quiet week into a heavy one, and a filing's effective date can shift a total from one week to another. Readers following a particular week should check back as new notices are published.

The national picture behind the weeks

Across the 90-day notice window, Layoff Atlas currently tracks 676 notices covering 63,851 reported workers, with 33 notices carrying no worker count. The data was last updated on October 27, 2026.

The states with the most reported workers in connected sources are Washington (16,960), California (13,557), Illinois (4,626), Texas (3,652), and Georgia (2,492). Those five states account for the bulk of the national total, so shifts in Washington or California filings can move the national weekly totals on their own.

All of these figures describe reported plans, not confirmed job losses. A WARN notice is an advance notification of a qualifying mass layoff or plant closure, filed with a state labor agency. Some planned layoffs are reduced, postponed, or cancelled before the effective date, and some workers are transferred or recalled. Coverage and reporting rules also vary by state, so the data is not a census of all layoffs.

What to watch next

Three things will determine whether December 1 stays the lightest week. First, whether any large new filing lands with a December 1 effective date in the coming days. Second, whether filings currently scheduled for late November slip into December. Third, whether the November 24 peak grows further or holds at 9,123 as its week approaches.

For workers, the practical point is the same in a light week as in a heavy one: a WARN notice starts a clock, and the effective date in the notice is the date to plan around. State Rapid Response programs and local workforce agencies can help with unemployment claims, retraining, and job placement, and they are worth contacting as soon as a notice is received rather than waiting for the effective date.

The week of December 1 is, for now, the quiet end of a heavy six weeks. Whether it stays quiet depends on the filings still to come.

Data source: Layoff Atlas