Layoff Atlas's headline numbers moved in a direction that looks, at first glance, like good news. On October 19, the tracker showed 737 WARN notices covering 67,101 reported workers in its 90-day window. Today, October 29, it shows 664 notices covering 62,049 workers. That is 73 fewer notices and 5,052 fewer workers in ten days.
New layoff notices did not stop arriving during that stretch. In the last few days alone, the registry picked up filings from Acme Brick in Montgomery, Alabama (53 workers), DCS in Fort Belvoir, Virginia (65 workers), Toter in Statesville, North Carolina (96 workers across two closure records), Henry Bosma Orchards in Granger, Washington (90 workers), and Congo Brands in Jefferson, Kentucky (4 workers). So why did the total fall while new notices kept coming in? Because the total is a rolling window, and old notices age out of it.
How the 90-day window works
Layoff Atlas's headline count covers notices with published notice dates inside the last 90 days. Only published notice dates enter the window. Records without a usable notice date appear separately, under "Recently imported," and do not count toward the headline total at all.
That design means the total changes for two reasons at once: new notices enter when they are published, and old notices leave when their notice dates pass the 90-day mark. In late October, the notices rolling out of the window are the ones published in late July and early August. If more workers were covered by those aging-out notices than by the notices arriving this week, the total falls — even in a week with fresh filings.
The ten-day slide shows exactly that pattern. The count eased from 737 notices on October 19 to 704 on October 25, then to 671 on October 28 and 664 today. Worker totals followed the same slope: 67,101, then 66,156, then 63,327, then 62,049. A steady, gradual decline like that is the signature of window rollover, not of a sudden change in employer behavior.
What the current numbers actually say
Today's snapshot, updated October 28, shows 664 notices, 62,049 reported workers, and 30 counts unavailable. Worker totals exclude unavailable counts, so the real number of affected workers in the window is somewhat higher than 62,049 — it just cannot be counted precisely from the filings.
The state ranking is largely unchanged. Washington leads with 17,050 reported workers, followed by California with 13,335, Illinois with 4,626, Texas with 3,652, and Georgia with 2,492. Washington's lead over California has widened slightly, from about 2,850 workers on October 19 to about 3,715 today, because California's older notices aged out faster than Washington's.
The other number: layoffs still to come
The 90-day notice window is only one way to read the data. Layoff Atlas also tracks upcoming effective dates — the dates workers are actually scheduled to be let go. That calendar looks like this for the next six weeks:
- Week of October 29: 8,520 workers
- Week of November 5: 3,302 workers
- Week of November 12: 7,472 workers
- Week of November 19: 8,412 workers
- Week of November 26: 5,819 workers
- Week of December 3: 1,670 workers
That is 35,195 workers with effective dates in the next six weeks. Notice that this is a different measure from the 62,049 in the notice window: the window counts notices published in the last 90 days regardless of when the layoffs take effect, while the calendar counts layoffs scheduled ahead regardless of when they were announced. The two totals answer different questions, and neither is a count of confirmed job losses.
How to read a falling total
Three things to keep in mind when the headline number drops:
- A falling total is not the same as fewer layoffs. It can simply mean that a heavy batch of notices from three months ago rolled out of the window. Check whether new notices are still arriving before drawing conclusions.
- Compare like with like. The notice-window total and the upcoming-effective-dates calendar measure different things. A week can look quiet on one and heavy on the other.
- Mind the gaps. Thirty worker counts are currently unavailable, and undated records sit outside the window entirely. Coverage varies by state, and missing source coverage is not zero layoffs.
The honest read of this week's decline is unglamorous but useful: the layoff picture is not suddenly improving. The window moved, and the window took some big summer notices with it. The filings arriving now — in Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, Washington, and Kentucky — will keep the total honest in the weeks ahead, and the 35,195 workers scheduled for the next six weeks are the number that matters most to the people behind it.
These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. Coverage and reporting rules vary by state.
Data source: Layoff Atlas
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