Order Code RL31250
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining
Notification Act (WARN)
Updated September 26, 2007
Linda Levine
Specialist in Labor Economics
Domestic Social Policy Division

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The Worker Adjustment and Retraining
Notification Act (WARN)
Summary
Congress has passed legislation to facilitate the reemployment of workers who
through no fault of their own are terminated by their employers. Statutes include the
Workforce Investment Act, which provides various reemployment services to
dislocated workers among others; the Trade Adjustment Assistance program for
workers, which provides reemployment services to trade-affected displaced workers;
and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which
provides advance notice of mass layoffs and plant closings.
Congress enacted the WARN Act (P.L. 100-379) in 1988 after lengthy
contentious debate. There was little interest in the law during the decade following
its passage because generally robust economic conditions prevailed. Interest has
renewed in the current decade for a variety of reasons, including the growth in
offshore outsourcing (offshoring) of U.S. jobs and perceived shortcomings of the
WARN Act. Most recently, S. 1792 and H.R. 3662 were introduced. The bills
would amend the statute to require more businesses to provide notice to more
workers and lengthen the notice period. They also would increase the back pay
penalty for violation of the law and authorize the Secretary of Labor to bring civil
action on behalf of workers as well as make educational materials more readily
available. While S. 1792 would require employers to notify the U.S. Department of
Labor of covered plant closings and mass layoffs after they had occurred, H.R. 3662
would require advance notice to be given to the Secretary of Labor and to U.S.
senators and representatives, state senators and representatives, and state governors
in the areas in which the plant is located.
The WARN Act now requires employers to provide written notice to displaced
workers or their representatives, state dislocated worker units or entities designated
by the state to carry out rapid response activities, and the chief elected official of a
unit of local government at least 60 days before a plant closing or mass layoff is
expected to occur. Shorter notice may be provided in three instances. There are a
number of other exceptions to and exemptions from the notification requirement.
Relatively small businesses and small short-term layoffs are not subject to the
WARN Act. Firms with 100 or more employees, excluding part-time employees,
must provide advance notice. A plant closing is a shutdown of a work site that
produces job losses for at least 50 employees (other than part-time employees) within
any 30-day period. A mass layoff is an employment loss at a job site within any 30-
day period affecting (a) 50-499 employees (excluding part-timers) if they make up
at least one-third of an employer’s workforce (excluding part-timers), or (b) at least
500 employees (excluding part-time employees).
Employees, their representatives, or units of local government can bring civil
actions against employers thought to have violated the act. DOL does not have any
investigative or enforcement authority under the law. The maximum liability of
employers is back pay and benefits for each day that notice was not provided,
although the amount of the penalty may be reduced.

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Contents
Length and Intent of the Act’s Advance Notice Requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Whom Does the Act Cover? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Part-time Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Employees Not Entitled to Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Closings and Layoffs to Which the Act Applies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Exceptions to or Exemptions from P.L. 100-379 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Transfers or Reassignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Sale of a Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Strikes and Lockouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Enforcement and Penalties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Appendix: Layoffs Due to the September 11 Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
List of Tables
Table A-1. Extended Mass Layoffs and Worker Separations Directly or
Indirectly Related to the September 11 Attacks, by Time Elapsed . . . . . . . . 8
Table A-2. Extended Mass Layoff Events and Worker Separations for
the Weeks Ending September 15, 2001-January 12, 2002, Directly
or Indirectly Attributed to the September 11 Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

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The Worker Adjustment and Retraining
Notification Act (WARN)
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act is one of the
pieces of legislation that Congress has passed to facilitate the reemployment of
workers who through no fault of their own lose their jobs. Other statutes include the
Workforce Investment Act, which provides a variety of reemployment services to
dislocated workers (e.g., training), and the Trade Adjustment Assistance program for
workers, which provides reemployment services to a subset of job losers (i.e., those
harmed by trade). Although “retraining” appears in its title, the WARN Act does not
authorize training. It instead requires employers that intend to carry out plant
closings or large-scale layoffs to provide advance notice to enable affected workers
to more quickly find new jobs.
Legislation was first introduced at the federal level in 1973 to require advance
notice of plant closings and mass layoffs.1 The issue proved to be contentious and
more than a decade elapsed before Congress enacted the WARN Act (P.L. 100-379)
in 1988 without President Reagan’s signature.2 The law became effective in
February 1989. It generated fairly little interest during a period marked by a brief
mild recession at the outset of the 1990s and then by the longest economic expansion
in the nation’s history (120 months).
Interest has renewed in the WARN Act during the current decade for a variety
of reasons. The frequency and size of layoffs increased markedly during the latest
(March-November 2001) recession and after the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001.3 A few years later, policymakers grappling with the issue of offshore
outsourcing or offshoring of U.S. jobs to other countries introduced legislation to
amend the statute.4 S. 2090, which was introduced in 2004, would have included
under the law employer actions that had the effect of creating, shifting, or transferring
1 The Trade Act of 1974 (Title II, Section 283 of P.L. 93-618) asked firms that planned to
move operations outside the United States to provide at least 60 days advance notice to
employees likely to be adversely affected by their actions as well as to the Secretaries of
Labor and Commerce.
2 For more information see U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Education and
Labor, Legislative History of S. 2527, 100th Congress, Worker Adjustment and Retraining
Notification Act, Public Law 100-379, 100th Cong., 2nd sess., serial no. 101-K (Washington:
GPO, 1990).
3 For information on mass layoffs related specifically to September 11, see the Appendix
of this report. For additional information on mass layoff activity, see CRS Report RL30799,
Unemployment Through Layoffs: What Are The Reasons?, by Linda Levine.
4 For information on offshoring, see CRS Report RL32292, Offshoring (a.k.a. Offshore
Outsourcing) and Job Insecurity among U.S. Workers, by Linda Levine.

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CRS-2
positions or facilities outside the United States and in so doing cause a job loss for
at least 15 employees during any 30-day period. In addition, the bill would have
lengthened the notification period and lowered the firm-size threshold for mass
layoffs. It also would have required the Secretary of Labor to issue statistical reports
based on the written notices of plant closings, mass layoffs, and offshoring that
covered employers would have had to provide the Secretary. (Under current law,
employers do not provide notices to the federal government.)
Two bills to amend the WARN Act have been introduced to date in the 110th
Congress. S. 1792 and H.R. 3662 have several common features intended to address
perceived shortcomings of the law, which has not been substantively amended since
its inception some 20 years ago.5 The two bills would revise the law to require more
firms to provide notice to more workers terminated en masse (e.g., by lowering the
firm-size threshold to 50 employees, covering mass layoffs of at least 25 employees
who account for one-third of an employer’s workforce or mass layoffs of at least 100
employees). The bills also would lengthen the notice period to 90 calendar days
before the event, increase the back pay penalty for violation of the statute, authorize
the Secretary of Labor to bring civil action on behalf of one or more workers, and
require the department to make educational materials about employee rights and
employer responsibilities under the act more readily available to the public. While
S. 1792 would require employers to notify the Secretary of Labor after a covered
event had occurred, H.R. 3662 would require notice be given in advance of a covered
plant closing or mass layoff to the Secretary of Labor and to U.S. senators and
representatives, state senators and representatives, and state governors in the areas
in which the plant is located.
A summary of the WARN Act follows.6
Length and Intent of the Act’s
Advance Notice Requirement
Generally, the WARN Act requires employers to provide written notice to
affected workers or their representatives at least 60 days before a plant closing or
mass layoff is expected to occur. Workers affected by a mass layoff would include
those who might be “bumped” from their jobs by more senior workers whose
positions had been eliminated.
State dislocated worker units or entities designated by the state to carry out rapid
response activities must be forewarned as well so they may provide assistance under
the Workforce Investment Act for example. The chief elected official of a unit of
local government also must receive notice 60 days before a plant closing or mass
5 For information on the act’s perceived shortcomings, see U.S. Government Accountability
Office, The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act: Revising the Act and
Educational Materials Could Clarify Employer Responsibilities and Employee Rights,
GAO-03-1003, September 2003.
6 See also 29 USC Chapter 23.

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CRS-3
layoff is initiated. (See the box, “Three Reasons for a Notice Period of Less Than 60
Days,” for the three instances in which the advance notice period can be of shorter
duration.)
The WARN Act does not supersede collective bargaining agreements or other
laws whose terms concerning advance notice or related employee rights are superior
to those of the statute (e.g., the provision of severance payments). If a state plant
closing law requires employers to provide more than 60 days advance notice, the
federal law’s notice period runs concurrently with the state’s requirement.
P.L. 100-379’s advance notice period is intended to afford employees time to
find other jobs, obtain retraining or otherwise adjust to their soon-to-be-changed
employment situation. As opposed to the termination of a few employees, large
numbers of workers released into a local labor market at approximately the same time
would produce keen competition for job vacancies. The job-seeking efforts of
displaced workers could be particularly difficult if they are released from a declining
industry in which nearby firms producing similar goods or services can offer few
employment opportunities. Similarly, a declining geographic area (i.e., one with a
shrinking or stagnant job base) could have much more trouble absorbing many
workers laid off at once as opposed to a few employees let go from time to time.
Three Reasons for a Notice Period of Less Than 60 Days
The faltering company exception: Employers can provide reduced notice for plant
closings but not for mass layoffs, if they had been seeking financing or business
for their faltering enterprises, thought they had a realistic chance of obtaining
funds or new business sufficient to allow the facilities to remain open, and
believed in good faith that giving notice would have prevented them from getting
the capital or business necessary to continue their operations.
The unforeseeable business circumstances exception: Employers can provide
reduced notice if they could not reasonably foresee the business circumstances that
provoked the plant closings or mass layoffs. Dire circumstances that occurred
without warning and that were outside the employer’s control could include (1) a
major client terminating a large contract with the employer, (2) a strike at a
supplier of key parts to the employer or (3) the swift onset of a deep economic
downturn or a non-natural disaster (e.g., a terrorist attack).
The natural disaster exception: The occurrence of floods, earthquakes, droughts,
storms, and similar effects of nature fulfill this exception to the 60-day advance
notice requirement for plant closings or mass layoffs. If closings or layoffs are
indirectly due to natural disasters, the exception would not apply; however, the
unforeseen business circumstances exception might.

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CRS-4
Whom Does the Act Cover?
Relatively small employers are not subject to the WARN Act. Private for-profit
and non-profit employers with 100 or more employees (excluding part-time
employees or the hourly equivalent7) must provide notice of impending plant closings
or mass layoffs. Neither federal, state, nor local governments are covered by P.L.
100-379, but public and quasi-public entities that engage in business and that
function independently of those governments are covered if they meet the employer-
size threshold.
Workers covered by the statute include hourly and salaried employees,
managers, and supervisors on the employer’s payroll. Persons who are temporarily
laid off or are on leave but have a reasonable expectation of being recalled also are
covered and counted toward the employer-size threshold. The law does not apply to
an employer’s business partners, contract employees who have an employment
relationship with and are paid by another employer, and self-employed individuals.
Part-time Employees
Part-time employees are defined as persons who on average work under 20
hours per week or who have been employed fewer than six of the 12 months
preceding the date on which notice is required. Part-timers thus include individuals
typically thought of as seasonal (part-year) workers as well as some full-time
employees (e.g., recent hires). Although part-time employees are not counted toward
the threshold for determining employer coverage under the law, they nonetheless are
due advance notice from covered employers.
Employees Not Entitled to Notice
Workers who are counted toward the firm-size threshold but are not entitled to
advance notice include U.S. workers who are located at an employer’s facility in a
foreign country and individuals who are clearly told upon being hired that their
employment would be temporary (e.g., limited to the time it takes to complete a
specific project). For information on other exemptions see the section in this report
entitled “Exceptions to or Exemptions from P.L. 100-379.”
7 At least 100 full-time and part-time employees who in the aggregate work at least 4,000
hours per week exclusive of overtime hours (i.e., 4,000 hours/100 employees = 40 hours per
week on average).

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CRS-5
Closings and Layoffs to Which the Act Applies
A plant closing is defined as a permanent or temporary shutdown of one or more
distinct sites of employment (e.g., an auto plant) or facilities or operating units within
a single site (e.g., a photocopying department) that produces an “employment loss”
for at least 50 employees, other than part-timers, at the site within any 30-day period.
An action is considered a plant closing if it effectively stops the work of a unit within
the site, although a few employees may remain in the facility.
A mass layoff is defined as an “employment loss” — regardless of whether any
units are shut down — at a single site within any 30-day period for
! 50-499 employees (excluding part-timers) if they make up at least
33% of an employer’s active workforce (excluding part-timers),8 or
! at least 500 employees (excluding part-timers).
P.L. 100-379 thus does not cover small layoffs.
An employer may have to provide advance notice if multiple groups of workers
are laid off over time but each group is smaller during any 30-day period than the
employee-size thresholds. If taken together the number of terminated workers
exceeds one of the thresholds during any 90-day period, the action is considered a
plant closing or mass layoff unless the employer proves that the employment losses
are due to “separate and distinct actions and causes and are not an attempt by the
employer to evade the requirements of” the act.
In order for the above-described plant closings or mass layoffs to trigger the
advance notice requirement, the employment loss must involve
! a termination other than a discharge for cause, voluntary departure,
or retirement,
! a layoff exceeding six months, or
! a more than 50% reduction in the work hours (excluding overtime
hours) of individual employees during each month of any six-month
period.
If an employer calls a layoff that is not expected to meet the statute’s six-month
threshold for providing advance notice and the employer subsequently extends the
layoff beyond six months, an employment loss will have occurred unless the
extension was due to “business circumstances not reasonably foreseeable at the time
of the initial layoff.” The employer must give employees advance notice when it
becomes foreseeable that an extension of a short-term layoff is necessary. As in the
case of multiple layoffs of small groups of employees, this provision is intended to
prevent employers from evading the act’s notice requirement by prolonging a layoff
that initially was too brief to meet the law’s definition of employment loss.
8 Actively working employees are persons currently on the employer’s payroll and in pay
status at the time of the mass layoff.

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CRS-6
Exceptions to or Exemptions from P.L. 100-379
The WARN Act contains several exceptions to or exemptions from its
requirement that employers provide affected parties with 60 days notice of an
impending mass layoff or plant closing. For example, the legislation specifies three
instances in which a shorter period of notice is allowed (see box above). The
exemption from the notice requirement of workers employed at temporary facilities
or on temporary projects was mentioned previously in the discussion about who is
counted toward the act’s employer-size threshold. Three other cases are taken up
below.
Transfers or Reassignments
The extent of employment loss can be reduced — and hence, the need to provide
notice can be minimized — under certain circumstances. If a closing or layoff takes
place due to the relocation or consolidation of all or part of an employer’s business
it is not considered an employment loss if before the action:
(1) the employer offers to transfer an employee to another site within
reasonable commuting distance and no more than a six-month break
in employment occurs (regardless of whether the employee accepts
or rejects the offer), or
(2) the employee accepts a transfer to another site — regardless of
distance — with no more than a six-month break in employment,
within 30 days of the employer’s offer or of the closing/layoff,
whichever is later.
Sale of a Business
The sale of all or part of a business does not in itself produce an employment
loss because individuals who were employees of the seller through the sale’s
effective date are thereafter considered employees of the buyer. If a covered plant
closing or mass layoff takes place up to and including the effective date of the sale,
it is the responsibility of the seller to provide notice. If the seller knows the buyer has
definite plans to initiate a covered plant closing or mass layoff within 60 days of the
purchase, the seller may give notice to affected employees as an agent of the buyer
if so empowered by the buyer. If not, the buyer becomes responsible for providing
the requisite advance notice.
Strikes and Lockouts
Plant closings or mass layoffs that are the result of a strike or lockout are exempt
from the notice requirement unless employers lockout employees to evade
compliance with the act. “Economic strikers” whom employers permanently replace
do not count toward the employee-size thresholds necessary to trigger the notice

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CRS-7
requirement.9 Non-striking employees who experience an employment loss directly
or indirectly associated with a strike and employees who are not members of the
bargaining unit involved in the contract negotiations that prompted a lockout are
entitled to advance notice.
Enforcement and Penalties
Employees, their representatives or units of local government can bring civil
actions in federal district court against employers thought to have violated the
WARN Act. A court does not have the authority to stop a plant closing or mass
layoff.
The U.S. Department of Labor does not have any investigative or enforcement
authority under the law. It is authorized to write regulations and to provide assistance
understanding them.
Employers who violate P.L. 100-379 are liable for back pay and benefits (e.g.,
the cost of medical expenses that would have been covered had the employment loss
not occurred) to each aggrieved employee. The penalty is calculated for each
working day that notice was not provided up to a maximum of 60 days. In other
words, the 60-day liability is reduced for each day that notice was provided.
Maximum liability may be less than 60 days for those employees who had worked
for the employer less than 120 days.
If any employer made “voluntary and unconditional payments” to terminated
employees for failure to provide timely notice, the amount of the penalty may be
reduced.10 A court also may decrease the back-pay liability if an employer’s failure
to comply with the act was in “good faith” with “reasonable grounds for believing”
that its closure or layoff action did not violate the law. In addition, a court may
reduce the $500 a day civil fine to which a unit of local government is entitled for an
employer’s violation of the statute. An employer can avoid the civil penalty entirely
if each aggrieved employee is paid the full amount owed within three weeks from the
date of the plant closing or mass layoff.
9 Economic strikers are those employees who go on strike over wages, hours, or other
working conditions during contract negotiations.
10 In contrast, severance payments that the employer was legally obligated to make because
of the employment loss do not diminish the employer’s liability. Similarly, payments made
by third parties to terminated employees (e.g., unemployment insurance benefits) do not
limit the size of the employer’s penalty.

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CRS-8
Appendix: Layoffs Due to the September 11 Attacks
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects data on mass layoffs and
extended mass layoffs. A mass layoff is defined as an event involving at least 50
workers from a single establishment who file initial claims for unemployment
insurance (UI) benefits during a consecutive five-week period. Although mass layoff
data are released monthly, limited information is collected on these potentially brief
events. The BLS subsequently obtains additional data — including the reason that
prompted the action — for those mass layoffs that last longer than 30 days. The
detailed information on extended mass layoffs is released on a quarterly basis.
To develop a statistical portrait of the impact on layoff activity of the September
11 terrorist attacks, the BLS began asking employers whether their decision to call
a layoff was directly or indirectly prompted by the events of that day. In the interest
of timeliness, these results were released each month. Although the series does not
cover employees let go individually or in small groups or who were just briefly laid
off, it was the only federal statistical program that tracked worker displacement
linked to the terrorist actions of September 2001.
For the 18-week period between mid-September 2001 and mid-January 2002,
employers reported that they called 430 extended mass layoffs that were directly or
indirectly attributable to the attacks. The actions involved 125,637 employees. As
shown in Appendix Table A-1, the number of layoffs and workers displaced
generally trended downward as time elapsed since the terrorists’ actions.
Table A-1. Extended Mass Layoffs and
Worker Separations Directly or Indirectly Related to
the September 11 Attacks, by Time Elapsed
Number of
Number of
Weeks Ending
Layoff Events
Separated Workers
September 15-October 13, 2001
283
87,257
October 20-November 17, 2001
96
24,345
November 24-December 15, 2001
23
2,574
December 22, 2001-January 12, 2002
28
11,461
Total
430
125,637
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Mass Layoff Statistics series.
Although employers in 33 states said they released at least 50 employees for
longer than 30 days as a direct or indirect result of the attacks, 72% of the layoffs and
63% of the worker separations took place in fairly few states. (See Appendix Table
A-2.) The seven states were California (98 layoffs and 23,516 workers), Florida (56
layoffs and 6,896 workers), Hawaii (25 layoffs and 3,495 workers), Illinois (21
layoffs and 11,320 workers), Nevada (42 layoffs and 14,943 workers), New York (47
layoffs and 10,765 workers), and Texas (21 layoffs and 8,839 workers).

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CRS-9
Most extended mass layoffs due to the terrorist attacks were concentrated in two
industry groups: (1) accommodation and foods services and (2) transportation and
warehousing. Together they accounted for 268 (or 62%) of the large, long-lasting
terrorist-related layoffs and 92,224 (or 73%) of the employees displaced by those
events. In particular, 100 (or 23%) of the layoffs took place at hotels and motels,
excluding casino hotels, within the broader accommodation and food services
industry group. Non-casino hotels/motels let go 18,703 employees in the actions, or
15% of all separated workers. Another 37 layoffs (or 9% of the total) were at casino
hotels, and 14,100 workers (or 11% of all separated workers) were let go in the
actions. The 30 remaining layoffs in the accommodation and food services industry
group (or 7% of all layoffs) that led to the termination of 7,544 workers (or 6% of all
separated employees) involved such firms as restaurants, cafeterias, fast-food
establishments, and caterers that felt the effect of reduced tourism brought about by
travelers’ fears over the events of September 11, 2001. Thus, the accommodation
and food services industry group as a whole experienced 39% of all large, long-
lasting layoffs (167 events) directly or indirectly connected with the terrorist actions
and released 32% (40,347) of all separated workers. In comparison, the scheduled
air transportation industry called many fewer actions (69 or 16% of the terrorist-
related layoffs), but it terminated a somewhat larger number of employees (44,861
or 36% of the total). The other 32 extended mass layoffs in the transportation and
warehousing industry group (or 7% of the total) likely involved nonscheduled air
carriers and sightseeing or charter bus operators. An additional 7,016 workers were
displaced by these employers (or 6% of all separated workers). The entire
transportation and warehousing industry group thus accounted for 101 (or 23%) of
the terrorist-related layoffs and 51,877 (or 41%) of all separated workers.

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CRS-10
Table A-2. Extended Mass Layoff Events
and Worker Separations for the Weeks Ending
September 15, 2001-January 12, 2002, Directly or Indirectly
Attributed to the September 11 Attacks
Number of
Number of
State
Layoff Events
Separated Workers
Total
430
125,637
Arizona
5
505
California
98
23,516
Colorado
5
1,624
Connecticut
4
726
Florida
56
6,896
Georgia
5
4,141
Hawaii
25
3,495
Illinois
21
11,320
Indiana
a
a
Iowa
a
a
Kansas
a
a
Kentucky
3
268
Louisiana
8
1,888
Maine
a
a
Maryland
5
1,579
Massachusetts
14
3,679
Michigan
a
a
Minnesota
5
5,979
Missouri
a
a
Nevada
42
14,943
New Jersey
9
1,660
New York
47
10,765
North Carolina
8
5,318
North Dakota
a
a
Ohio
5
711
Oklahoma
4
367
Oregon
a
a
Pennsylvania
4
962
Tennessee
6
1,256
Texas
21
8,839
Utah
4
870
Virginia
6
1,584
Washington
8
7,225
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unpublished data from the Mass Layoff Statistics series.
a. Although extended mass layoffs attributable, directly or indirectly, to the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks occurred in these states, the actions were too few in number to meet BLS or
state agency disclosure standards (i.e., fewer than three events).

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