Nike, Apple and Republic National Distributing Co., a major liquor distributor in the United States, are among the latest companies listed on USA TODAY’s layoff tracker, driven by Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act filings.
The tracker captured Nike’s latest layoff filing in St. Charles, Missouri, on April 23, which showed 172 job cuts, part of its broader plan to lay off 1,400 employees. The same day, a notice from Apple appeared in the tracker stating that 78 employees would be affected by the store closure in Maryland.
Republic National Distributing Company filed layoff notices in several locations, including Texas, South Carolina and Virginia, cutting a total of more than 3,000 jobs.
Four months into 2026, corporate America has announced nearly 1,600 layoffs, affecting more than 128,000 workers, according to USA TODAY’s tracker. This is 5% less notice this year compared to the same period last year. A huge wave of massive layoff announcements from companies including Amazon and UPS made January a tough month for workers across the country.
Since then, WARN filings have seen a cooling trend as affected workers have declined month over month, indicating the labor market is stuck in a holding pattern amid economic uncertainty induced by the Iran war and growing concerns over AI displacing workers.
“From a macro perspective we have this stagnant labor market, where companies aren’t hiring a lot of people, but they also aren’t choosing to fire a lot of people,” Laura Ulrich, director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told USA TODAY.
In an April 21 report on AI and geopolitics, JPMorgan’s chief U.S. economist Michael Ferroli described a market that is showing “resilience in the face of headwinds,” but one where month-to-month fluctuations are becoming more erratic than in earlier economic expansions.
“The current labor market is neither overheating nor collapsing, but rather becoming increasingly sensitive to shocks,” Ferroli said.
WARN notices serve as an indicator to gauge the pace of job losses and departures from major companies months ahead of actual departures, as the cuts announced today will not occur until two months after the announcement.
Although these notices indicate the number of job losses, they do not provide any information on the other side of the ledger, i.e. how many people were hired. The net job gain or loss in April will be provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its jobs report on May 8.
The agency’s report through March showed a month-over-month decline, with a loss of 133,000 jobs in February amid gains in January and March.
warning signs
Nowadays, layoff cycles are much shorter than they used to be, said Brian Creeley, who founded the career coaching company A Life After Layoffs. Creeley said previously, a worker might expect potential displacement once every decade, but now “it’s really every 18 months to two years.”
Creeley said he is actively training about 25 people and has about 200 clients in a typical year.
While one-third of their clients seek help after being laid off, nearly one-third are still employed but think a layoff is coming.
“They’re starting to notice those indicators, those warning signs, like, ‘All of a sudden my boss’s tone has changed in my meetings, and he’s saying some weird things at our town halls,'” Creeley said.
For many workers, making a fresh start has been difficult. People who have recently lost jobs have previously told USA TODAY how competitive the current job market is and have expressed concerns about whether their roles will still exist in the near future.
Nearly a quarter of American families live paycheck to paycheck, Bank of America reports. For some families, layoffs can quickly turn into a financial crisis.
Creeley’s best advice for today’s employees is to be prepared and have an up-to-date resume. “In this market, we have to be more proactive and not wait for the other shoe to drop.”
Why do warning notices matter?
According to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, passed in 1988, employers with 100 or more full-time workers must give at least 60 days’ written notice before plant closings and mass layoffs. Mandatory Advance Notification helps workers with career changes, where they can start looking for a job while still being technically employed.
USA TODAY tracks warning notices daily from 43 state labor departments and the District of Columbia. The tracker shows the latest mass layoff notices companies reported to state governments in the United States, including the earliest filings dating back to the 1990s. Readers can research notices by state, company, and notice year to see where, when, and why layoffs are occurring. California leads the nation in WARN layoffs, followed by Washington and Texas, likely reflecting their large worker populations or the volatile nature of key industries.
Although state requirements vary and the Act does not cover small or medium-sized companies, experts view WARN filings as a real-time economic indicator for the job market, while some other government data can lag by weeks or months. Other federal job-related data rarely provides the level of granularity that WARN notices do, because filings include details such as the employer’s name, number of workers affected, location, date the layoffs were announced, and the effective date of the layoffs.
However, the data comes with caveats: Seasonal patterns and any major layoff announcements could distort month-to-month readings. For example, the increase in job cuts in January reflected concentrated layoffs at a few major companies.
“Layoffs are typically seasonal,” said Sarah Malik, an assistant professor at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business. He said some companies may incur increased restructuring costs in the new fiscal year, which could lead to a large increase in WARN filings in January.