Employers with 100 or more workers must give 60 days' written notice before a plant closing or a mass layoff that affects 50 or more employees at a single site, under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. California runs a parallel rule that reaches further, applying the same 60-day window to mass layoffs, relocations, and terminations at a covered establishment, with its own formula for what a company owes if it skips the notice.
What does the WARN Act actually require?
The federal law, enforced through 29 U.S.C. § 2101, sets a bright line: an employer that crosses the 100-employee threshold must give 60 calendar days' advance written notice before ordering a covered plant closing or mass layoff, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The count excludes part-time workers who have been employed less than six months in the prior year or who average fewer than 20 hours a week, and it excludes regular federal, state, local, and federally recognized tribal government entities providing public services.
Notice does not go only to the workers losing their jobs. The Department of Labor's guidance lists four required recipients: affected employees themselves, along with managers and supervisors; any employee representative, such as a union; the local chief elected official; and the state's dislocated worker unit, the office that coordinates retraining and unemployment services after a layoff.
Which layoffs trigger the 60-day clock?
The threshold is a single site of employment, not a company's total headcount nationwide. A plant closing or mass layoff has to affect 50 or more employees at that one location before the clock starts, per the Labor Department's summary of the statute. Three carve-outs can shorten or waive the notice period: unforeseeable business circumstances, a faltering company that was actively seeking capital or business at the time notice would have been due, and natural disasters. None of the three eliminates the obligation to notify — they can shorten how much notice a court will require, but the underlying duty to inform workers still applies.
What happens when a company skips the notice?
The Department of Labor does not police WARN violations itself. Its FAQ guidance states plainly that the agency has no enforcement authority under WARN and does not investigate complaints or bring suits to enforce the law; workers or their unions have to sue in federal court, or bankruptcy court if the employer has filed. A company found liable owes each affected worker back pay and the value of lost benefits for the violation period, capped at 60 days, and a civil penalty of up to $500 for each day it failed to notify the required local government unit — a penalty an employer can avoid entirely by paying affected workers within three weeks of the closing. Courts can also award the prevailing party's attorney's fees.
How does California's rule differ from the federal one?
California layers its own statute, the California WARN Act, on top of the federal one, and the two do not always work the same way. Under Cal-WARN, an employer may not order a mass layoff, relocation, or termination at a covered establishment without giving 60 days' written notice beforehand, according to the state Department of Industrial Relations. Notice goes to affected employees and to the state's Employment Development Department, which also fields a separate compliance FAQ for employers navigating the filing.
The back-pay formula is where the state rule breaks from the federal one. A California employer that skips required notice is liable to each affected worker for back pay and the value of lost benefits, but the law caps that liability at whichever is smaller: 60 days, or half of the employee's total time working for that employer. A worker with four months on the job, in other words, cannot collect a full 60 days of back pay under the state formula — the half-tenure cap cuts in first. The Department of Industrial Relations also notes that state directors can grant exemptions from the requirement under specific statutory conditions.
California counts eligibility differently, too. Its Employment Development Department, in FAQ guidance for workers and employers, counts only employees who worked at least six months in the 12 months before notice was required — the same six-month lookback the federal statute uses to decide who counts toward a covered layoff in the first place.
What the two laws share
Both statutes run on the same clock — 60 calendar days — and both route notice to a state-level office built to respond to a layoff: the dislocated worker unit under federal law, the Employment Development Department under California's. Neither law requires a company to explain why it is closing or relocating, only that it warn the workers and officials entitled to know before the order takes effect.
| Feature | Federal WARN Act | California WARN Act |
|---|---|---|
| Notice period | 60 calendar days | 60 calendar days |
| Who enforces it | No federal enforcement; workers sue in federal or bankruptcy court | State agency involvement via the EDD; back pay recoverable by affected workers |
| Back pay if notice is skipped | Up to 60 days of pay and benefits | Capped at the lesser of 60 days or half the employee's tenure |
| Notice recipients | Employees, union reps, local elected official, state dislocated worker unit | Employees and the Employment Development Department |
Why the notice window matters to a community
The 60-day window is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the lead time a dislocated worker unit or an EDD office has to line up unemployment claims, retraining slots, and job fairs before a plant's last shift ends, rather than after. A notice filed the same week as a closing gives local officials no runway to respond; a notice filed 60 days out gives them two months to organize services before the layoff actually lands on a town's unemployment rolls.
For a related society perspective, read How the WARN Act's 60-Day Clock Actually Works.