California Now Tops the US Layoff Ranking, Just Ahead of Washington

California now sits at the top of the Layoff Atlas state ranking for reported layoffs. In the current 90-day notice window, California accounts for 18,309 reported workers, just ahead of Washington at 17,050. The gap between the two states is 1,259 workers — a real lead, but a narrow one in a ranking that moves every time the window rolls forward.

The national picture behind the ranking is 694 notices covering 67,083 reported workers in the 90-day window, with 30 worker counts unavailable. Together, California and Washington account for 35,359 of those workers, or about 53 percent of the national total. No other state is close: Illinois is third at 4,626, followed by Texas at 3,652 and Georgia at 2,492. California's total alone is roughly four times Illinois'.

How narrow the lead is

A lead of 1,259 workers sounds large on its own. Set against Washington's 17,050, it is about 7 percent. That matters because this ranking is not a fixed league table. It is built from notices published in the last 90 days, so older filings drop out of the window while new ones enter it. A single large filing, or a batch of filings ageing out, can move a state up or down the list within days.

Readers should therefore treat the top spot as a snapshot, not a verdict. California leads today, on today's window. The same data next week could show a different order, and that would not mean either state's underlying economy had suddenly changed. It would mean the window had moved.

What is inside California's total

California's recent filings include several large notices. Fender Musical Instruments filed a 533-worker temporary notice in Corona, effective December 14, 2026. Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream filed a series of temporary notices in Bakersfield and Tulare, including 715 workers in Bakersfield and 448 in Tulare, both effective December 19, 2026. Netflix filed two Los Angeles-area layoff notices totalling 494 workers, and eBay filed a 229-worker layoff notice in San Jose.

Two details in that list deserve attention. First, several of the largest recent California filings are marked temporary rather than permanent. A temporary filing still counts as a reported plan affecting workers, but it does not carry the same meaning as a permanent closure, and it should not be read as confirmed permanent job loss. Second, California's volume is not a one-week story. In 2026 so far, the state's archive holds 1,193 notices covering 63,959 reported workers, and 180 California notices have future effective dates. The full imported archive for California holds 17,621 notices and 1,455,786 reported workers.

Washington, in second place

Washington's 17,050 workers come from a much smaller number of filings. In 2026 so far, Washington's archive holds 130 notices covering 28,033 reported workers, with 47 notices carrying future effective dates. Its full imported archive holds 1,525 notices and 249,431 reported workers.

The contrast is instructive. California reaches its total through a high volume of notices, including many mid-sized filings alongside the large ones. Washington reaches a similar total through fewer, larger filings on average. Two states can therefore arrive at nearly the same worker total through very different filing patterns, which is one more reason to look past the headline ranking and into the notices themselves.

Washington's most recent dated filing on the national list is Henry Bosma Orchards, a 90-worker filing in Granger effective November 30, 2026, with a notice date of October 27, 2026.

The rest of the top five, and what comes next

Behind the top two, the ranking drops sharply. Illinois at 4,626, Texas at 3,652, and Georgia at 2,492 are each less than a third of Washington's total. That steep drop is itself a finding: in this window, reported layoff activity is heavily concentrated in two states, not spread evenly across the country.

Looking ahead, the registry shows 35,417 workers with effective dates across the next six weeks: 8,693 in the week of October 29, 3,302 in the week of November 5, 7,521 in the week of November 12, 8,412 in the week of November 19, 5,819 in the week of November 26, and 1,670 in the week of December 3. Those are scheduled effective dates, not predictions, and they will change as new notices arrive and existing plans change.

How to read these numbers

WARN figures are reported plans, not confirmed job losses. Coverage and reporting rules vary by state, worker totals exclude unavailable counts, and a notice can be amended, delayed, or partly reversed after it is filed. Temporary notices, in particular, should not be counted as permanent losses. Missing source coverage is not zero layoffs, and a state with a lower total may simply have thinner reporting rather than fewer layoffs.

With those caveats, the current ranking still tells a clear story: California and Washington together account for more than half of all reported workers in the 90-day window, California holds a narrow lead, and the gap is small enough that the next batch of filings could change it. That is worth watching — not as a contest between states, but as a measure of where reported layoff plans are concentrated right now.

Data source: Layoff Atlas