Week Ahead: November 17 Brings 6,613 Scheduled Layoffs as November Stays Heavy

The week of November 17, 2026, is shaping up as one of the heaviest layoff weeks of the fall. According to current WARN data tracked by Layoff Atlas, 6,613 workers are scheduled to be affected that week — the third-heaviest week on the upcoming calendar, behind only the weeks of November 24 (9,300 workers) and November 10 (6,887 workers).

November is not letting up. Across the six weeks from November 3 through December 8, a total of 28,844 workers are scheduled for layoffs. The November 17 week alone accounts for nearly a quarter of that total, and it sits in the middle of a three-week stretch — November 10, November 17, and November 24 — in which more than 22,000 workers are scheduled to be affected.

The week in numbers

Here is how the upcoming calendar looks, by effective week:

• 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
• Week of December 1: 2,398 workers
• Week of December 8: 1,296 workers

The pattern is worth noting. The current week, November 3, is comparatively quiet at 2,350 workers. Then the numbers roughly triple for three straight weeks before falling back sharply in December. Do not mistake the quiet start of November for a quiet month: the bulk of the month's scheduled layoffs is still ahead.

These figures come from the 90-day WARN window, which currently holds 666 notices covering 62,948 reported workers, with 28 notices where no worker count was available. That window rolls forward daily, so the totals shift as new notices are filed and older ones age out.

Where the numbers are concentrated

California and Washington continue to dominate the national picture. California leads with 18,196 reported workers in the window, followed by Washington with 17,336. Together, the two states account for more than half of all reported workers nationwide. Illinois (3,649), Texas (2,978), and Maryland (2,429) round out the top five.

Maryland's presence in the top five is itself a recent shift — Virginia held the fifth spot a day earlier. State rankings move for mundane reasons as often as dramatic ones: a single large filing can lift a state, and the rolling window drops older filings daily. A one-place change is a signal to watch, not a verdict on a state's economy.

These state totals are also not a census of layoffs. They reflect only notices that were filed, published, and captured by connected sources, and reporting rules vary by state. Some states publish promptly and completely; others publish little or nothing. Missing source coverage is not zero layoffs.

New filings keep arriving

The pipeline behind these weekly totals is still active. The most recent dated filings on the registry include GEICO's 114-worker notice in Lakeland, Florida, and International Automotive Components Group's 83-worker notice in Cottondale, Alabama — both filed November 2 and effective December 31, 2026. Alaska Airlines filed a 121-worker notice covering Seattle, Spokane, and Renton, Washington, on October 30, also effective December 31. Pharmaceutics International filed a 94-worker notice for Hunt Valley, Maryland, on October 30, effective December 29.

Most of those new filings point to late December rather than mid-November, which is normal: WARN notices are typically filed weeks before the effective date, so today's filings shape December's calendar while November's was largely set weeks ago.

How to read the November 17 figure

A few cautions apply to this number, as they do to every WARN total:

First, these are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. A WARN notice is an employer's advance notification of a planned mass layoff or plant closure. Some planned layoffs are later reduced, delayed, or cancelled, and some workers find other roles with the same employer. The notice is the best public signal available, but it is not a final count of people who lose their jobs.

Second, the weekly totals group workers by effective date, not by notice date. A worker counted in the November 17 week may have received notice in September or October. The week tells you when the job loss is scheduled to take effect, not when it was announced.

Third, the totals exclude the 28 notices in the window with no reported worker count. The true number of affected workers is therefore somewhat higher than 6,613 for that week and 62,948 overall — by an amount that cannot be computed from the published data.

What to watch next

Two things will determine whether November stays this heavy: the December calendar, where new late-December filings are arriving daily, and the week of November 24 itself — currently the heaviest at 9,300 workers — where any filings that slip or shrink would bring the month's total down.

For workers with a November 17 effective date, the practical steps are the same as for any WARN notice: confirm the effective date and whether the layoff is permanent or temporary, check unemployment eligibility in your state, and review health coverage options before the last day. State rapid-response teams, triggered by WARN filings, can help with job search and retraining — and they are free.

We will keep tracking the weekly totals as they change. The November wave is real, it is concentrated in three weeks, and the middle of it arrives November 17.

Data source: Layoff Atlas