WARN notices: where states post them and how to get an alert

WARN notices are the written warnings US employers must give before a covered plant closing or mass layoff, and many states post the ones they receive on a public page. The quickest way to see them is to watch those state pages for the employers you care about, which is what AyeWatch does: it checks the pages you add and sends a short summary with the source when a new notice names one of your companies.

What a WARN notice tells you

Under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, a covered employer has to give at least 60 calendar days of notice before a qualifying closing or layoff. The Department of Labor's rules in 20 CFR Part 639 send that notice to three places: the affected workers or their union, the state's dislocated worker unit, and the top elected official of the local government.

What a state publishes usually comes down to a few fields: the employer, the site, how many people are affected, and when the first separations start. That is often enough to learn about a cut before any company statement, and sometimes the notice is the only public record of it.

Two cautions. Not every job cut needs a notice, because the law has size and headcount thresholds. And not every notice means a company is in trouble: a site move or a temporary shutdown can look alarming in a spreadsheet. Open the notice itself before you draw a conclusion.

Where states post WARN notices

There is no single federal list. Each state publishes its own, in its own format, as of November 2026:

The mixed formats are why filings get missed. A file that is replaced, a PDF that grows every month and a dashboard you have to filter are all tedious to check by hand each morning.

How to get WARN notice alerts with AyeWatch

1. Pick the states. Start with the one where your employer, client or portfolio company actually has staff. Add a second state once the first watch works.
2. Add the state page. Paste the state's WARN page into AyeWatch as a webpage monitor.
3. Write the rule in plain English. For example: "Tell me when a new notice lists Acme or Globex. Ignore other employers." AyeWatch matches on meaning rather than exact keywords, which keeps unrelated page edits out of your feed.
4. Add a topic for the coverage. A second monitor can follow news and announcements that mention new WARN filings by the same employers, so local reporting and the filing land in one place.
5. Choose where alerts go. Push and the in-app feed come with every plan. Email, Slack, Discord and webhooks are on paid plans.

When an alert arrives, follow its link to the notice, check the site and the headcount, and then look for the company's own statement or, for a public company, its SEC filing.

What AyeWatch is not

AyeWatch watches the public pages and topics you give it. It does not keep its own national WARN database, and it does not predict layoffs. If you want to search years of past notices across states, an aggregator such as WARNTracker.com is the better fit. And if you only follow one state that runs its own email list, like Washington, that free list may be all you need.

For several states and a short list of employers, AyeWatch is the simpler setup. It has a free preview, and paid plans start at $9 a month. Start with one state page and the companies you already watch by hand.