pretty_name: >-
WARN Act notice-type codes crosswalk - every raw state string and what it
means
license: cc-by-4.0
language:
- en
task_categories:
- tabular-classification
- text-classification
tags:
- warn-act
- data-cleaning
- entity-resolution
- normalization
- crosswalk
- codebook
- data-dictionary
- layoffs
- layoff-notices
- plant-closings
- labor
- labor-market
- public-records
- government-data
- daily-updated
- united-states
size_categories:
- n<1K
configs:
- config_name: crosswalk
data_files: data/notice_type_crosswalk.csv
WARN Act notice-type codes — the crosswalk
Every US state publishes WARN Act layoff notices with a free-text column saying what kind of event it is. The statute recognises two: a plant closing and a mass layoff. Across 48 states that column contains 491 distinct exact strings (474 once you fold case).
This dataset is the crosswalk: one row per raw string, how many notices carry it, which states emit it, and what it normalizes to.
The finding that matters
460 of the 491 strings (94%) are used by exactly one state. Only 31 are shared across states at all.
There is no common vocabulary. CL means closure in Indiana and Wisconsin;
Illinois fills the column with State; five states write WARN — the name of the
statute — where the event type belongs. 324 strings appear on a
single notice in the entire archive.
This is why "just parse the state files" does not converge: there is nothing to parse toward until someone reads all 48 vocabularies and keeps reading them as states change their exports.
Vocabulary by what it maps to
| maps to | distinct strings |
|---|---|
| layoff | 161 |
| closure | 115 |
| mixed (both terms present) | 18 |
| unknown (deliberately unmapped) | 197 |
unknown is a real category, not a failure to try. It covers blanks, strings that
name which statute applies rather than what happened (State, WARN, numeric
record codes), and strings that name a cause (loss of contract, sale of company, COVID-19) rather than an event. Guessing these would manufacture
thousands of false rows that no downstream user could detect.
The 12 most common strings
| raw value | maps to | notices | states | used by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (blank) | unknown | 13,209 | 29 | AK CO CT DC FL HI ID KY LA MA MN MO MT ND… |
Layoff Permanent |
layoff | 7,812 | 2 | CA TN |
Closure |
closure | 6,067 | 15 | AK AL CO KY MI MS NC NE NV NY OH PA VA WA WV |
Layoff |
layoff | 5,939 | 15 | AK AL KY MI MO MS NC NE NV NY OH PA VA WA WV |
State |
unknown | 4,845 | 1 | IL |
Closure Permanent |
closure | 4,164 | 2 | CA TN |
Layoff Temporary |
layoff | 3,657 | 2 | CA TN |
WARN |
unknown | 1,658 | 5 | AZ DE KS ME VT |
Closing |
closure | 1,196 | 8 | CO CT IA MN MO PA RI WV |
Plant Closing |
closure | 917 | 3 | MI OK PA |
CL |
closure | 862 | 2 | IN WI |
Mass Layoff |
layoff | 837 | 7 | CO IA MD MI OK PA WV |
Files
data/notice_type_crosswalk.csv— 491 rows:raw_value,kind,permanence,reason,notices,n_states,states.
Covers all 59,806 notices in the archive as of 2026-09-12; rebuilt daily in the same pipeline run as the notices themselves, so the two can never disagree.
Limits — read before citing
- These are notices, not verified job losses. A WARN notice can be amended, rescinded, or never carried out.
- The mapping is conservative: anything that does not clearly say closing or
layoff is left
unknownrather than guessed. permanenceis only populated where the state says so; most states do not.- Counts are of notices, not workers.
Related
- Daily US WARN notices (flagship) — the full normalized feed
- Plant closings vs mass layoffs — this mapping applied
- Site · Source and methodology
License CC-BY-4.0. Built from public state government records.
Use it, or keep watching it
This dataset is one cut of a single daily rebuild: 61,306 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 2026-09-13; the files above are rebuilt every day, so the live count is the truth.
Look something up right now — free, no signup, nothing to install. Check any employer or state against the last 180 days → 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 →
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 · what you get
- Try it free for 30 days, no card · Buy — $49/year
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. Payments are handled by Gumroad as merchant of record, so an invoice can carry your company name.