The week of December 11 is the last week on Layoff Atlas's current six-week calendar, and 3,031 workers are scheduled to be affected by layoffs with effective dates that week. It is a quieter week than the ones before it — about a third of the busiest week on the calendar — and it closes out a six-week stretch in which 29,797 workers are scheduled for layoffs across the country.

The figures come from WARN notices filed with state labor agencies and tracked by Layoff Atlas: 675 notices covering 64,274 reported workers in the 90-day window, with 28 notices carrying no worker count. These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses, and coverage varies by state.

The calendar at a glance

The six weeks on the calendar now run like this:

  • Week of November 6: 2,847 workers
  • Week of November 13: 8,850 workers — the heaviest week
  • Week of November 20: 7,181 workers
  • Week of November 27: 5,991 workers
  • Week of December 4: 1,897 workers — the lightest week
  • Week of December 11: 3,031 workers

December 11 accounts for about one in ten of the 29,797 workers scheduled across the six weeks. It is roughly a third of the November 13 peak of 8,850, and about 60 percent larger than the December 4 low of 1,897. The two December weeks combined — 4,928 workers — are smaller than the week of November 27 alone.

The taper after the mid-November peak

The shape of the calendar tells a simple story: the heaviest layoffs are concentrated in mid-November, and the schedule thins out as December goes on. The week of November 13 alone holds nearly 30 percent of the six-week total. By the week of December 11, the weekly count has fallen by almost two-thirds from that peak.

That does not mean layoffs are ending. New notices are filed every week, and the calendar only counts filings already published with effective dates in these weeks. A quiet week on the calendar today can grow as new notices arrive. What the numbers do show is that, on the filings published so far, the back half of December looks lighter than mid-November.

The December 11 week is also the edge of the visible calendar, not the edge of the data. Beyond it, Layoff Atlas is tracking a separate cluster of 3,974 workers with effective dates on December 31 alone — the single heaviest effective date currently on the books, spread across 23 filings. Those filings sit outside this six-week window, and the December 11 total itself may still move as filings are added or corrected.

Two states still dominate the picture

California accounts for 20,812 reported workers and Washington for 17,411 — together 38,223, or about 59 percent of the 64,274 workers in the 90-day window. Illinois (3,548), Texas (2,750), and Virginia (2,526) round out the top five.

The concentration matters when reading any single week. A large share of the workers scheduled in a given week typically comes from a handful of large filings in California and Washington, so one big notice can move a week's total by hundreds. The December 11 figure is no different: it is the sum of many separate filings, and a single new notice from a large employer could shift it noticeably before the week arrives.

How to read the December 11 number

A few things are worth keeping in mind. First, the week a layoff takes effect is not the week the notice was filed. Employers must generally give 60 days' notice under the federal WARN Act, so the December 11 effective dates mostly reflect notices filed in October. Second, 28 notices in the current window carry no worker count, so the totals understate the full picture. Third, WARN coverage is not a census of layoffs — some states publish notices promptly and completely, others barely at all, and layoffs below the WARN thresholds never appear. The numbers are a floor, not a ceiling.

For workers, the December 11 week is a reminder that the notice period is the time to act: the 60-day window between a filing and its effective date is when unemployment claims, health coverage decisions, and the job search need to happen, not after the last day. For everyone else watching the labor market, the calendar's message is measured: the heaviest weeks are November's, December looks lighter on current filings, and the picture will keep changing as new notices arrive.

Data source: Layoff Atlas.