--- pretty_name: What changed in US WARN Act layoff notices (daily observed change log, amendments and disappearances) license: cc-by-4.0 language: - en task_categories: - tabular-classification tags: - warn-act - layoffs - layoff-notices - amendments - revisions - change-log - point-in-time - data-provenance - time-series - public-records - government-data - daily-updated - labor - labor-market - united-states size_categories: - n<1K configs: - config_name: changes data_files: data/warn_notice_changes.csv default: true - config_name: suppressed_snapshot_pairs data_files: data/suppressed_snapshot_pairs.csv --- # What changed in US WARN Act layoff notices **617 observed changes** across **18 daily builds** (2026-08-30 to 2026-09-16), touching **411 distinct notices** in the [daily US WARN Act dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-warn-act-layoffs-notices-daily). This is the answer to a question no state labor department will answer for you: **what did the layoff filing say before it said this?** State WARN portals publish a page. When a notice is amended, re-filed or pulled, the page simply changes - there is no history, no diff, no archive. This dataset is that diff, taken every single day. ## Read this before you use a single row A difference between two of our daily builds has **two possible causes**, and we usually cannot tell which one it was: 1. the state agency amended, re-filed or removed the notice, or 2. **our own parser or normalizer got better** and now reads the same source differently. We do not guess. The `cause_class` column labels only what is mechanically decidable, and every headline number below is computed from `value_changed` rows only. **`change_type=row_absent` means the row stopped appearing in our build. It does not mean the employer withdrew the notice.** A state re-organising its portal, a paginated page timing out, or a filing ageing out of a source's own window all produce a `row_absent` row. **Workers whose headcount was substantively revised: 0.** An earlier build of this pipeline was about to publish a four-figure "workers revised" total; inspection showed every one of those events was an empty field being populated for the first time, not a number being changed. That is why the number here is computed from `value_changed` rows alone. ## Columns | column | meaning | |---|---| | `observed_date` | the build in which the change was first seen | | `prev_observed_date` | the build it is being compared against | | `id` | stable notice id, joins to the [main dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-warn-act-layoffs-notices-daily) | | `state` | two-letter state posting the notice | | `company` | employer as filed at `observed_date` | | `notice_date` | date on the filing | | `change_type` | `amended` (a field differs) or `row_absent` (row gone from our build) | | `cause_class` | `value_changed`, `field_populated`, `field_cleared`, `format_only`, `unknown` | | `field` | which column changed (blank for `row_absent`) | | `old_value` / `new_value` | the two values, as printed | ## What is in here right now | change_type | rows | |---|---| | amended | 348 | | row_absent | 269 | | cause_class | rows | |---|---| | value_changed | 152 | | format_only | 24 | | field_populated | 172 | | field_cleared | 0 | | unknown | 269 | Fields that were amended: | field | times | |---|---| | `location` | 126 | | `notice_type` | 84 | | `employees_affected` | 64 | | `effective_date` | 41 | | `company` | 30 | | `notice_date` | 3 | ## The suppression ledger (5 day-pairs) Our own coverage window has widened several times (adding states, and opening the free window from 2024+ back to 1988). On a day when the row count swings more than ~5%, treating every missing row as a disappearance would manufacture tens of thousands of fake withdrawals. On those day-pairs we **suppress** disappearances and publish the pair in `suppressed_snapshot_pairs.csv` instead, so the gap is visible rather than silent. Amendments are still published for those days. ## Why this cannot be copied Anyone can re-scrape 48 state portals and match our current table within a week. Nobody can reconstruct what those portals said last Tuesday. This file starts at 2026-08-30, grows by one build every day, and cannot be backfilled by us or by anyone else. Every day it is not captured is lost permanently. ## Freshness Rebuilt daily by an automated pipeline (`gen_revisions.py`) straight from the git history of the free dataset's `data/warn_notices.csv`. Latest build in this copy: 2026-09-16. ## Related - [Daily US WARN Act notices](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-warn-act-layoffs-notices-daily) - every notice, 48 states, free, no login. - [Multi-state employers](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-multi-state-employer-layoffs-warn-notices-by-state) - who is laying off in more than one state. - [Notice-period dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-warn-act-layoff-notice-period-days) - how many days' notice each filing gave. - [Free CSV/JSON/RSS on GitHub](https://github.com/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices) - CC BY 4.0. - [The site](https://approjects-warn-act-notices.static.hf.space) - state pages, employer pages, live search. - [WARN Watch](https://approj.gumroad.com/l/warn-watch) - same-day alert when an employer on your list files, $49/year. ## License CC BY 4.0. Underlying notices are US state public records. Attribution: "WARN Feed, https://approjects-warn-act-notices.static.hf.space". *Not affiliated with the US Department of Labor or any state agency.* ## A layoff record you can audit, not just download This dataset is one cut of a single daily rebuild: **61,330 US WARN Act layoff notices from 48 state agencies, 1988 to today**, one schema, no login, no delay, CC BY 4.0. Snapshot as of **2026-09-17**; the files above are rebuilt every day, so the live count is the truth. Several projects publish a current WARN scrape and two of them carry more rows than we do. None of them publish what the records **used to say**: - **617 observed changes to already-published notices, logged daily since 2026-08-31.** `data/revisions.csv` records every field that differed between two consecutive daily builds — employee counts, effective dates, notice types, company names — with the old value, the new value and the date we saw it. We publish the observation and not the cause: a change is equally explained by the agency amending the notice or by our own parser improving, and we do not guess which (see `data/revisions.README.txt`). A scrape that starts tomorrow cannot backfill any of it; it only exists if someone was watching. - **6,799 notices whose state agency page no longer lists them.** Agencies take notices down. We keep them, flagged as archive-only, so a count you ran last year still reconciles. - **Point-in-time employer identity.** The ticker crosswalk resolves a filer to the company as it existed at the time of the notice — Kmart, Sears Holdings, Symantec — not to whatever is on today's ticker file. If you have to defend a number to an editor, a referee or a compliance reviewer, that provenance layer is the part you cannot rebuild yourself. [How to cite this dataset →](https://github.com/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices/blob/main/CITATION.cff) **Look something up right now — free, no signup, nothing to install.** [Check any employer or state against the last 180 days →](https://approjects-warn-act-notices.static.hf.space/watch-now.html) It runs in your browser against these same files. **Building something with it?** The same files are a free HTTP API — JSON and CSV, no key, no signup, `access-control-allow-origin: *` so `fetch()` works from a browser: [endpoints, schema and curl examples →](https://approjects-warn-act-notices.static.hf.space/api.html) **Need one industry only?** The same filings, cut by an auditable employer-name rule (each row keeps the rule that fired): [tech companies](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-tech-company-layoffs-warn-act-notices-daily) · [hospitals & healthcare](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-hospital-healthcare-layoffs-warn-act-notices-daily) · [retail store closings](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-retail-store-closings-layoffs-warn-act-notices-daily) · [restaurants & hotels](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-restaurant-hotel-closings-layoffs-warn-act-notices-daily) · [factory & plant closings](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-factory-plant-closings-manufacturing-layoffs-warn-act-notices-daily) · [banks, insurance & finance](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-bank-insurance-finance-layoffs-warn-act-notices-daily) · [warehouses, trucking & logistics](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-warehouse-trucking-logistics-layoffs-warn-act-notices-daily) · [all 20 sectors](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-layoffs-by-industry-sector-warn-act). **Or have it watch a list for you.** Coming back to look is the part a CSV cannot do. **WARN Watch — $49 for a year**, one payment, nothing auto-renews, 14-day refund, no login: up to 500 employer names plus whole states, matched on every daily refresh, delivered to a private alert page + calendar (.ics) + RSS + an optional Slack / Discord / Teams webhook. Every alert carries that employer's whole filing history from the archive, which a keyword rule on an RSS feed cannot see. There is no built-in email — we do not claim one. - [See a real alert page before paying](https://approjects-warn-act-notices.static.hf.space/watch-sample.html) · [what you get](https://approjects-warn-act-notices.static.hf.space/watch.html) - [Try it free for 30 days, no card](https://approj.gumroad.com/l/warn-free-watch) · [Buy — $49/year](https://approj.gumroad.com/l/warn-watch) **Not deciding today?** [Join the update list →](https://approj.gumroad.com/subscribe) — one email when a new dataset or tier is published; nothing promotional. A state added or a column renamed ships in the [daily release](https://github.com/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices/releases) instead, no address needed. The list is shared across APProjects datasets, holds an email address only, is run by Gumroad, and any message unsubscribes you. Rather give no address at all? [Watch the repo's releases](https://github.com/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices/subscription) — GitHub notifies you on every daily republish, and a new state or changed field is in those notes the day it lands. **Reaching a human.** WARN Feed is published by APProjects, an automated data publisher — that is stated plainly rather than dressed up. Corrections, coverage gaps, schema questions and refund requests all go here and are read: [open an issue](https://github.com/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices/issues/new/choose). Payments are handled by Gumroad as merchant of record, so an invoice can carry your company name. [Source, scrapers and methodology](https://github.com/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices) · [the 48-state site](https://approjects-warn-act-notices.static.hf.space/) Card views are counted anonymously: one 1×1 image on a public CDN, no cookies, no script, no personal data. The count is public: jsDelivr stats.