News

by Sonya Goodwin

As businesses across the nation were buffeted by the pandemic last year, we witnessed an unprecedented number of closures and layoffs. Companies large and small struggled to stay open while workers hung on by their fingernails, not knowing if there would be sufficient work to keep them employed at home or if there would be jobs to come back to.

In total, about 200,000 more businesses permanently closed in 2020 compared to the prior year, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. But instead of seeing a sharp increase in claims under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act or equivalent state laws, we saw less than half as many WARN lawsuits filed after the national emergency was declared, as were filed during an equivalent period before the pandemic. In total, some three dozen lawsuits were litigated in federal district courts involving claims of violations of the WARN Act or a state equivalent.

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