Bull, Shamz-Azar, Larkin & Cohen Files 6-Worker WARN Notice in Bethesda, Maryland
A small filing joined the national layoff registry this week. Bull, Shamz-Azar, Larkin & Cohen, PA, listed at Suite 360 in Bethesda, Maryland, filed a WARN notice covering 6 workers, with an effective date of December 31, 2026. The notice date is October 29, 2026.
Six workers is a small number next to the week's larger filings. But it is exactly the kind of record that explains why layoff data looks the way it does: the registry is not a list of only big plant closures. It is a running record of reported plans of many sizes, with small notices sitting alongside filings covering hundreds of workers.
These are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. A WARN notice records what an employer told a state agency it planned to do, as of the notice date. Plans can change, dates can shift, and some notices are later cancelled or amended.
The filing at a glance
- Employer: Bull, Shamz-Azar, Larkin & Cohen, PA
- Location: Suite 360, Bethesda, Maryland
- Workers affected: 6
- Notice date: October 29, 2026
- Effective date: December 31, 2026
- Notice period: 63 days
The 63-day gap between the notice date and the effective date clears the federal WARN Act's standard 60-day advance-notice window. That matters because the notice period is one of the first things worth checking on any filing: a notice filed well ahead of the effective date gives workers and local agencies time to prepare.
The effective date also places this filing in a busy year-end window. December 31, 2026 is a shared effective date for several filings already in the registry, as employers often align workforce changes with the end of a calendar year.
Why a 6-worker notice is in the registry at all
The federal WARN Act generally applies to employers with 100 or more full-time employees, and to layoffs affecting at least 50 workers (or a plant closure of any size at a covered employer). A 6-worker filing does not obviously meet that federal threshold, which is a reasonable thing to notice.
State registries, however, are broader than the federal minimum. States collect and publish notices through their own channels, and the Layoff Atlas registry combines official records with labeled secondary reports. A small filing can appear because a state agency published it, or because it was imported from a state listing that does not filter by size. The registry preserves the record as filed.
That breadth cuts both ways. The registry captures small, local events that a threshold-filtered list would miss, but its headline totals mix filings of very different kinds: a 6-worker notice and a 220-worker closure both add one notice to the count. Read both numbers together — how many notices, and how many workers — rather than either one alone.
Maryland in 2026
Maryland's imported archive holds 1,428 non-cancelled notices reporting 117,764 workers affected, with 16 notices carrying future effective dates. In 2026 alone, the archive records 114 notices and 8,057 reported workers. Over the last 365 days, 147 eligible official filings report 9,948 workers, and the newest official notice date is October 29, 2026 — the same date as this filing.
The 6-worker filing is a tiny fraction of Maryland's 2026 total and does not move the state's ranking. But it is part of the current flow of notices: Maryland's registry is actively updated, with new official notices arriving through late October.
Maryland is not one of the states driving the national totals. In the current 90-day window, California leads with 17,715 reported workers, followed by Washington with 17,361, Illinois with 4,385, Texas with 3,280, and Georgia with 2,492. Maryland's 2026 story is steadier and smaller-scale: individual filings, many of them modest, rather than a single dominant event.
The national picture right now
Across the registry's current 90-day window, there are 679 notices covering 66,050 reported workers, with 29 worker counts unavailable. The upcoming weeks remain heavy: 7,049 workers are scheduled effective in the week of October 30, then 3,302 in the week of November 6, 8,793 in the week of November 13, 7,181 in the week of November 20, 5,778 in the week of November 27, and 1,708 in the week of December 4.
That calendar is the context for a 6-worker Bethesda filing. The national story this fall is dominated by large filings and heavy weeks in mid-November. Small filings do not change that story, but they complete it: layoff notices are not only a big-company phenomenon.
How to read this filing
If you follow a specific employer, three checks matter most. First, confirm the effective date and whether it applies to your role, since notices sometimes cover only part of a site. Second, note the notice period: 63 days here is a full standard window, leaving time to check unemployment eligibility, benefits, and severance terms. Third, remember that a WARN notice is a plan, not a final outcome — dates can move, and some planned actions are reduced or withdrawn.
For readers tracking the data, the lesson is simpler: do not read the notice count as a headcount. Six workers and 220 workers both count as one notice. The worker total is where the human scale lives; the notice count shows the breadth. Both numbers, read together, give the honest picture.
Data source: Layoff Atlas
