Wisconsin's Mini-WARN Act: 60 Days' Notice at 25 Employees, Explained

Federal WARN law sets the floor for layoff notice: 60 days' warning before a plant closing or mass layoff, but only from employers with 100 or more full-time workers, and only when job losses clear high thresholds. Wisconsin's own law, Wis. Stat. § 109.07, keeps the 60-day clock but lowers the bar: in Wisconsin, a closing or mass layoff affecting just 25 workers can trigger notice.

Layoff Atlas's imported archive for Wisconsin holds 608 non-cancelled notices reporting 60,207 workers, with 53 official filings reporting 4,412 workers in the last 365 days. These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses — but the volume shows a state law catching layoffs the federal law would miss.

Who the law covers

The statute applies to any business enterprise employing 50 or more people in Wisconsin — a much wider net than federal WARN's 100-plus full-time employees, since Wisconsin counts people employed in the state rather than applying the federal full-time test.

The two triggers

A business closing means a permanent or temporary shutdown of an employment site, or of facilities or operating units at a site or within a single municipality, affecting 25 or more employees.

A mass layoff — a reduction not caused by a closing — affects, at a site or within a single municipality, at least 25 percent of the workforce or 25 employees, whichever is greater — or at least 500 employees.

Federal WARN, by contrast, generally needs 50 to 499 full-time workers making up at least one-third of the workforce, or 500 or more, for a mass layoff. A Wisconsin layoff of 30 workers at a 100-person plant — 30 percent — triggers state notice but would fail both federal tests. That gap is the whole point of a mini-WARN law.

One counting rule matters for both triggers: new or low-hour employees — those who worked fewer than 6 of the 12 months before notice is due, or who average fewer than 20 hours a week — are excluded from the numbers. They still get notice; they just do not count toward the threshold.

Who must be told

Once an employer has decided on a covered closing or layoff, it must give written notice no later than 60 days before the event to four recipients: the Department of Workforce Development subunit running the state's dislocated-worker program, every affected employee, any union representative of affected employees, and the municipality's highest official — the mayor, village president, or town board chairperson.

Employee notices must also include contact information for the local workforce development board and, if available, the state's workforce resources list. One exclusion: the rule does not apply to a closing or layoff caused by a strike or lockout.

What happens when notice is short or missing

Wisconsin's remedy centers on pay for the notice days the worker should have received: pay for the recovery period — from the day notice was due until the earlier of the day notice was given or the day of the closing or layoff — at the greater of the employee's recent average regular rate or their rate at the time of the event, plus the value of benefits that would have been received in that period, minus any benefit-plan credits for time not served.

Enforcement runs through the state. The employee may claim with the department within 300 days; the department investigates and tries to recover the payment. If it cannot recover within 180 days of the claim, or within 30 days of its determination, whichever comes first, the claim goes to the Department of Justice, which may sue in circuit court. If that office does not act within 120 days, the employee may sue personally, and a prevailing employee also recovers costs and reasonable attorney's fees. Late notice to the municipality's highest official separately carries a surcharge of up to $500 per day.

Wisconsin filings in the current data

Recent filings show the law working at the scale its thresholds predict. The newest official filing is Maynard Steel in Milwaukee: a 77-worker closure noticed October 4, 2026, effective December 4 — 61 days' notice. Bank First, N.A. in Wausau filed a 47-worker layoff noticed October 1, effective December 4 — 64 days; Foremost Farms USA in Marshfield filed a 68-worker closure noticed August 24, effective December 15 — 113 days. All three clear Wisconsin's 25-worker bar; the 47-worker Bank First layoff would not have cleared the federal thresholds on its own numbers.

Wisconsin's 2026 filings total 53 notices and 4,206 workers so far. Nationally, the current window shows 673 notices and 63,421 reported workers over 90 days; the week of November 25 is the heaviest ahead, with 9,645 workers scheduled.

The bottom line

Do not assume a Wisconsin layoff is too small for a notice law to apply. Federal WARN leaves many mid-sized layoffs uncovered; Wisconsin's law catches closings and layoffs at 25 workers and backs the 60-day rule with a state-run claim process and a 300-day deadline. If you got less than 60 days' notice, or none, check whether your employer filed with the Department of Workforce Development, and note the date: the recovery period and claim clock both run from it. This article is general information, not legal advice for any individual case.

Data source: Layoff Atlas