How to survive layoffs and protect your finances
As more Americans lose their jobs, these tips will help you protect your finances, secure health insurance, and find your next job faster.
Nike, Apple and Republic National Distributing Company, a major U.S. alcohol distributor, are among the companies recently listed on USA TODAY’s Layoff Tracker, which leverages Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act filings.
The tracker captured Nike’s latest layoff filing in St. Charles, Missouri, on April 23, showing 172 layoffs as part of a broader plan to lay off 1,400 employees. On the same day, an Apple notice appeared on the tracker detailing that 78 employees would be affected by the Maryland store closure.
Republic National Distributing Company filed layoff notices in multiple locations, including Texas, South Carolina and Virginia, resulting in a total of more than 3,000 job cuts.
Four months into 2026, American companies have announced nearly 1,600 layoffs, affecting more than 128,000 workers, according to USA TODAY’s tracker. This translates to 5% fewer notifications this year compared to the same period last year. January was a tough month for workers across the country, with companies like Amazon and UPS announcing mass layoffs.
Since then, filings with WARN have shown a cooling trend as the number of affected workers declines each month, indicating the labor market is stuck in a maintenance pattern amid economic instability from the Iran war and growing concerns about worker replacement by AI.
“From a macro perspective, the labor market is just stagnant. Companies aren’t hiring a lot of people, but they’re also not choosing to lay off a lot of people,” Laura Ulrich, director of North American economic research at Indeed Hiring Lab, told USA TODAY.
Michael Feroli, JPMorgan’s chief U.S. economist, said in an April 21 report on AI and geopolitics that markets are showing “resilience in the face of headwinds,” but month-on-month fluctuations are more volatile than during the previous month’s expansion.
“The current labor market is neither overheating nor collapsing, but it is becoming increasingly sensitive to shocks,” Feroli said.
Because the layoffs announced today will not take effect until up to two months after they are announced, WARN notices serve as an indicator of job cuts by major companies and their pace months before actual departures.
These notices show the number of unemployed people, but do not provide information on the other side of the ledger: how many people have been hired. Net employment changes for April will be announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its May 8 employment report.
The agency’s report through March shows month-to-month volatility, with 133,000 jobs lost in February between gains in January and March.
warning sign
Brian Creeley, founder of career coaching firm A Life After Layoff, says layoff cycles are much shorter now than they used to be. Mr Creeley previously said that while workers may have expected a once-in-a-decade move, it is now “actually going from once every 18 months to once every two years”.
Creeley said he currently actively mentors about 25 people and has about 200 clients in a typical year.
A third of his clients are seeking help after being made redundant, while another third are still employed but feel they are about to be made redundant.
“They’re starting to notice signs and red flags like, ‘All of a sudden, your boss’s tone changes in a meeting, or he’s saying strange things in town hall,'” Creeley said.
For many workers, making a fresh start was difficult. Those who recently lost their jobs have previously told USA TODAY how competitive the current job market is and expressed concerns about whether their roles will remain in the near future.
Nearly a quarter of U.S. households live paycheck to paycheck, according to a Bank of America report. For some families, layoffs can quickly turn into a financial crisis.
Creely’s best advice for today’s workers is to keep your resume current and prepared. “We need to be more proactive in this market rather than waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Why are we collecting WARN notification data despite its limitations?
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, passed in 1988, requires employers with 100 or more full-time workers to provide at least 60 days’ written notice of any plant closure or mass layoff. Required advance notice supports career transitions so that workers can begin their job search while remaining in a technical position.
USA TODAY tracks warning notices from 43 state labor departments and the District of Columbia daily. The tracker reflects information provided in the filings themselves and shows the latest mass layoff notices reported to state governments by U.S. companies. The oldest were filed in the 1990s. Readers explore layoff notices by state, company, and notice year to find out where, when, and why layoffs took place. California has the highest number of WARN layoffs in the nation, followed by Washington and Texas, likely reflecting the large working population and the volatile nature of key industries.
State requirements vary and the law does not cover small businesses, but experts view WARN filings as a near-real-time economic indicator of the job market, whereas some other government statistics can be delayed by weeks or even months. Additionally, other federal employment-related data rarely provides the same level of granularity as WARN notifications, as filings include details such as employer name, number of affected workers, location, layoff announcement date, and layoff effective date.
However, there are caveats to this data. Monthly measurements can be skewed by seasonal patterns or a single large-scale layoff announcement. For example, the sharp rise in layoffs in January reflects concentrated layoffs at a small number of large companies.
“Layoffs are generally seasonal,” said Sarah Malik, an assistant professor at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business. He added that some companies may push restructuring costs into the new financial year, which could result in a significant increase in WARN filings in January.
