Understanding WARN Act compliance, notice requirements for seasonal operations

When an employer transitions to a seasonal operation, questions often arise regarding the applicability of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and whether such a change triggers the Act’s notice requirements. Understanding the WARN Act, including how it applies specifically to seasonal employment, is essential for employers to ensure compliance and safeguard employees’ rights.

What is the WARN Act?

The WARN Act requires certain employers to provide at least 60 calendar days’ advance written notice of covered plant closings and mass layoffs. WARN notice is required when there’s an employment loss, which includes a temporary layoff or furlough lasting longer than six months.

Plant closures aren’t limited to the shutdown of a factory. Rather, they’re defined as the permanent or temporary shutdown of a single site of employment, or one or more facilities or operating units within a single site of employment, that results in an employment loss for 50 or more employees, excluding part-time employees, during any 30-day period.

A mass layoff is a reduction in force that doesn’t result from a plant closing but that results in an employment loss at a single site of employment during any 30-day period for either:

·     50 to 499 employees if they constitute at least 33% of the active workforce at that site (excluding part-time employees); or