| --- |
| 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 |
| **552 distinct exact strings** (531 |
| 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 |
|
|
| **521 of the 552 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. 372 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 | 185 | |
| | closure | 147 | |
| | mixed (both terms present) | 23 | |
| | 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** | 13,759 | 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** | 6,077 | 15 | AK AL CO KY MI MS NC NE NV NY OH PA VA WA WV | |
| | `Layoff` | **layoff** | 5,943 | 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 | |
| | `Plant Closing` | **closure** | 1,398 | 4 | MI NY OK PA | |
| | `Closing` | **closure** | 1,196 | 8 | CO CT IA MN MO PA RI WV | |
| | `CL` | **closure** | 862 | 2 | IN WI | |
| | `Mass Layoff` | **layoff** | 838 | 8 | CO IA MD MI NY OK PA WV | |
|
|
| ## Files |
|
|
| - **`data/notice_type_crosswalk.csv`** — 552 rows: |
| `raw_value`, `kind`, `permanence`, `reason`, `notices`, `n_states`, `states`. |
|
|
| Covers all **61,304** notices in the archive as of |
| 2026-09-13; 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 `unknown` rather than guessed. |
| - `permanence` is only populated where the state says so; most states do not. |
| - Counts are of notices, not workers. |
|
|
| ## Related |
|
|
| - [Daily US WARN notices (flagship)](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-warn-act-layoffs-notices-daily) — the full normalized feed |
| - [Plant closings vs mass layoffs](https://huggingface.co/datasets/APProjects/us-plant-closings-vs-mass-layoffs-warn-act) — this mapping applied |
| - [Site](https://approjects-warn-act-notices.static.hf.space) · [Source and methodology](https://github.com/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices) |
|
|
| License CC-BY-4.0. Built from public state government records. |
|
|
| <!-- warn-feed:offer:start --> |
| ## 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/) |
| <!-- warn-feed:offer:end --> |
|
|
| <!-- warn-feed:px:start --> |
| <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices@main/assets/px/hf/warn-act-notice-type-codes-crosswalk.png" width="1" height="1" alt=""> |
| <sub>Card views are counted anonymously: one 1×1 image on a public CDN, no cookies, no script, no personal data. The count is public: <a href="https://data.jsdelivr.com/v1/stats/packages/gh/APVentureEngine/warn-act-notices@main/files?period=month">jsDelivr stats</a>.</sub> |
| <!-- warn-feed:px:end --> |
|
|
