Without WARNing

It's been a tough few years here in the United States.  Whether you call it "The Great Recession" or just plain hard times, there's no denying that the American economy is suffering.

As an unfortunate consequence of these difficult economic conditions, many employers are being forced to terminate large numbers of employees.  However, even in these times there are protections for hard working Americans, and among those protections are laws like the WARN Act.


WARN stands for the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.  The WARN Act was enacted August 4, 1988, and became effective February 4, 1989.

The purpose of the WARN Act was to provide certain employees enough time once they are fired to try and find new employment, and perhaps as a part of that to acquire new skills to make themselves more marketable.

To that end, the Act covers businesses with 100 or more employees, not counting employees who have worked less than 6 months in the last 12 months and not counting employees who work an average of less than 20 hours a week, or workers on strike.  Practically all private businesses, as well as public ones that operate in a commercial context separately organized from the regular government are covered, while government employers are not.

Generally speaking, if a lay off at one of these companies occurs and at least 50 people are terminated, the business is required to give those 50 or more employees at least 60 days notice.  There is much more to the Act, of course; certain part time and short time employees are entitled to notice also, and temporary facilities are exempt, for example.

It can be difficult when you are part of a layoff  or plant closing, or if you are an employer struggling with the decision to sell off a facility or layoff large numbers of staff.  Again, always be sure to consult with an attorney, to find out more about WARN and other laws and how they could apply to you!  You may also want to visit the United States Department of Labor website, where a vast amount of WARN Act and other information is available for free to the public.