The Two Heaviest Layoff Weeks Are Back to Back: 14,552 Workers Scheduled

The two heaviest weeks on the layoff calendar are sitting right next to each other. The week of November 13 carries 7,371 reported workers with effective dates, and the week of November 20 carries 7,181. Together that is 14,552 workers — nearly half of everything scheduled across the next six weeks.

These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. WARN notices describe what employers expect to do, and the numbers can change before the effective date. But as a measure of what is currently on the calendar, the concentration is striking: two consecutive weeks hold almost as much as the other four weeks combined.

The six-week picture

Reported workers by effective week, from the Layoff Atlas registry:

• November 13: 7,371 workers
• November 20: 7,181 workers
• November 27: 5,991 workers
• December 4: 1,997 workers
• December 11: 3,034 workers
• December 18: 5,003 workers

The six-week total is 30,577 workers. The first two weeks account for 14,552 of them, or about 48 percent. The remaining four weeks total 16,025. In other words, the calendar is front-loaded: the heaviest stretch is happening now, and it eases sharply after the Thanksgiving week.

The same two weeks are also a large share of the whole current picture. The registry's 90-day window holds 667 notices covering 61,284 reported workers, with 29 records lacking an available worker count (data updated November 12, 2026). The 14,552 workers in the next two weeks equal about 24 percent of that entire 90-day total.

The November 13 week has already moved

The figure for the week of November 13 is not the one the registry showed a few weeks ago. On October 23, the same week counted 8,744 workers, the heaviest on the calendar at the time. Today it counts 7,371 — down 1,373 workers, or about 16 percent.

That movement is normal for this data, and it is worth understanding. The calendar changes as filings are added, amended, or cancelled, and as older records roll out of the window. A week that looks heaviest a month out can shrink by the time it arrives, and a quiet week can grow. The November 20 figure has been steadier — it stood at 7,181 in late October and still stands at 7,181 today — but the November 13 revision is a reminder to read any single week's number as a snapshot, not a final count.

Where the workers are

The scheduled layoffs are heavily concentrated in two states. California leads the 90-day window with 22,043 reported workers, followed by Washington with 17,333. Together the two states account for 39,376 workers, or 64 percent of the national window total. The next three states are far behind: Virginia at 2,556, Maryland at 2,522, and Texas at 2,419.

That concentration shapes how the next two weeks will feel on the ground. A national total of 14,552 sounds diffuse, but in practice most of it sits in California and Washington workplaces, with the rest spread thinly across the other states. Workers in the top two states are far more likely to know someone affected than workers elsewhere.

The cliff after Thanksgiving

The week of November 27, which includes Thanksgiving, still carries 5,991 workers — the third-heaviest week on the calendar. Then the numbers fall off sharply. The week of December 4 counts just 1,997 workers, the lightest week on the calendar, followed by 3,034 in the week of December 11 and 5,003 in the week of December 18.

November's three weeks total 20,543 workers; December's three weeks total 10,034 — less than half. The drop is not a sign that layoffs are ending. It is partly the calendar itself: fewer employers schedule effective dates in early December, and many filings that would land there are still working through the notice pipeline. The 2027 calendar is already filling up, with 2,882 workers across 35 records from 24 employers in six states, up from just 391 workers on October 24.

How to read the next two weeks

For workers, the practical point of a concentrated calendar is timing. If your employer has filed a WARN notice with an effective date in the next two weeks, the notice period is nearly over, and the steps that matter — confirming severance terms, checking how health coverage carries past the last day, and filing for unemployment promptly — should already be in motion. Rapid-response services, offered free in most states after a WARN filing, can help with job search and retraining, and they are worth contacting before the effective date rather than after it.

For everyone else, the next two weeks are the peak of the current cycle. The registry will keep updating, and the figures for the weeks after December 18 will fill in as new filings arrive. The pattern to watch is not just the size of the peak but whether the December weeks stay quiet or start climbing as November's filings give way to new ones.

Remember the caveat that applies to every figure on this page: these are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. Coverage and reporting rules vary by state, and worker totals exclude records where the count was unavailable.

Data source: Layoff Atlas