Virginia Enters the Top Five as Illinois and Texas WARN Totals Fall

The state ranking of reported US layoffs has shifted again. In the latest 90-day window of WARN data tracked by Layoff Atlas, Virginia has moved into the top five states by reported workers, while Illinois and Texas have both seen their totals fall. California and Washington remain far ahead of the rest of the country, but the gap between them has widened.

The national picture first: the registry currently holds 658 notices covering 62,497 reported workers in the 90-day window, with 25 notices lacking a worker count. Those figures describe reported plans, not confirmed job losses. WARN notices are advance notifications filed with state labor agencies, and the totals move for two reasons — new notices arriving, and older notices aging out of the 90-day window. A falling state total does not necessarily mean layoffs stopped there; it can also mean a batch of large notices rolled out of the window.

The new top five

• California: 18,196 workers
• Washington: 17,215 workers
• Illinois: 3,649 workers
• Texas: 2,978 workers
• Virginia: 2,373 workers

Compare that with the ranking two days earlier, on November 1: California led with 17,715, Washington followed with 17,361, Illinois stood at 4,385, Texas at 3,280, and Georgia held fifth place with 2,492. Virginia was outside the top five then; Georgia has now dropped out of it.

California extends its lead

The most notable move at the top is the widening gap between the first two states. On November 1, California led Washington by just 354 workers. California has since added a net 481 workers to reach 18,196, while Washington has slipped by 146 to 17,215, stretching the gap to 981.

Together, the two states account for 35,411 of the 62,497 reported workers nationally — about 57 percent of the total. That concentration has been a constant of the autumn data: no other state comes within 13,000 workers of Washington's total, let alone California's. Whatever happens in the rest of the country, the national WARN picture is, to a large extent, a California-and-Washington story.

Illinois and Texas both fall

Illinois recorded the largest drop in the top five, falling 736 workers from 4,385 to 3,649 — a decline of about 17 percent in two days. Texas fell 302 workers, from 3,280 to 2,978, a drop of about 9 percent.

These moves are worth reading carefully. A two-day swing of this size in a 90-day window usually reflects window mechanics as much as new filings: when a cluster of notices filed in early August reaches the 90-day boundary, it drops out of the count all at once. The registry does not publish a day-by-day reconciliation for each state, so the honest reading is that Illinois and Texas totals fell in the current window, not that employers in those states suddenly stopped planning layoffs.

That said, the direction matters for workers and local officials watching the numbers. Illinois remains third nationally despite the drop, and Texas remains fourth. Neither state is close to falling out of the top five.

Virginia moves in

Virginia's entry into the top five, at 2,373 workers, displaces Georgia, which held fifth place at 2,492 on November 1. The fifth spot remains contested — a single mid-size filing in either state could flip it again. Virginia's total is still less than one-eighth of California's, a reminder of how top-heavy the national ranking is.

What the coming weeks hold

The ranking shift comes against a heavy upcoming calendar. By effective date, the next six weeks look like this:

• Week of November 3: 2,350 workers
• Week of November 10: 6,887 workers
• Week of November 17: 6,613 workers
• Week of November 24: 9,300 workers — the heaviest week on the calendar
• Week of December 1: 2,398 workers
• Week of December 8: 1,296 workers

The six-week total is 28,844 workers, and nearly a third of it falls in the week of November 24 alone. After that peak, scheduled effective layoffs drop sharply in December, with the week of December 8 down to 1,296. Rankings in early December will therefore reflect a very different mix of effective dates than the current window does.

How to read ranking shifts

Three cautions apply to any state ranking built from WARN data. First, coverage varies by state: some states publish notices promptly and completely, others do not, so a low total can mean thin reporting rather than few layoffs. Second, the 90-day window means totals are always partly a story about what is expiring, not just what is new. Third, these are reported plans, not confirmed job losses — some announced layoffs are later delayed, reduced, or cancelled, and some never appear in a WARN filing at all because they fall below the legal thresholds.

Even with those cautions, the ranking is a useful early-warning map. It shows where the largest concentrations of planned job cuts are, and which states are moving up or down the list. This week, the movement is at the margins of the top five: California pulling away, Illinois and Texas easing back, and Virginia stepping into fifth place.

Data source: Layoff Atlas