A WARN filing is a timestamped record, not a strategy memo. It can tell you when notice reached a state, when separations may start, how many workers a listed action covers, and sometimes which job titles appear. It usually cannot tell you the full reason for a company decision or what any one person plans to do next.

That distinction matters for candidates and hiring teams. If you read the fields in order, you get a useful calendar and a more accurate picture of the affected work. If you collapse every date and count into one headline, you can easily turn old paperwork into new news or a site count into a global claim.

What a WARN notice establishes

The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act provides advance notice for qualifying plant closings and mass layoffs. The general federal rule is at least 60 calendar days, subject to the definitions and exceptions in 20 CFR Part 639. Required recipients include affected workers or their representatives, the state dislocated worker unit, and the chief elected official of the local government.

Public access happens through state systems. The Washington Employment Security Department database says its table includes the employer and location, effective date, worker count, action type, received date, and a downloadable notice. California EDD publishes a current WARN workbook and explains its state and federal framework on the California WARN page.

Those public records are group records. They are not the same as every employee's own notice. When a company letter gives a reason, attribute it to the company. When a public row has no cause field, do not invent one.

The three dates to keep separate

Notice or letter date. This is when the employer dated or sent the notice. In California's workbook it appears as Notice Date.

Received or processed date. This is when the state agency logged the filing. Washington explicitly organizes its database by Received Date. California shows a separate Processed Date. This date can be days after the company notice.

Effective or first separation date. This is when the listed action may start. It is not necessarily every affected person's final day. Federal rules say that when employees are not all terminated on the same date, the first termination in the relevant period triggers the notice clock. The rules also allow a 14-day separation period in a notice, with the first day of that period used for the 60-day calculation.

Expedia is a clear example. Washington ESD received the notice on September 22 and lists November 21 as the layoff start date. The company's public letter says the 58 separations are expected from November 21 through December 1. The database start date and the letter's window are compatible, but they answer different questions.

How to read the other fields

Employer and location define the scope of the row. A legal entity or campus label may differ from the brand in a headline. A worker tied to a site may also work remotely.

Affected workers is the count for that listed action and location. It is not automatically a national or worldwide reduction. Add rows only when the dates, company entity, and action show they belong together, and say exactly which rows you added.

Layoff or closure, permanent or temporary is the state's classification of the action. It does not, by itself, describe the business strategy behind it.

Title attachment can show the functions affected. Federal notice-content rules describe job titles and the number of affected workers by job classification in notices to state and local government, while also allowing a shorter alternative notice if the employer keeps the additional information available on site. Public state materials therefore vary. In the public Microsoft, Expedia, and Oracle copies reviewed here, employee names and addresses are not displayed while job titles remain visible. This guide uses titles and aggregate counts only.

When Raydar groups titles into broader families, those are editorial buckets. They are not a company's org chart.

Six companies and seven state summaries

Six companies appear below. Oracle has separate Washington and California summaries, so there are seven bullets. The current California workbook was downloaded October 3 and covers notices processed through September 30. The Washington database was checked the same day.

  • Uber, California: Four September rows in the current EDD workbook cover 390 permanent layoffs, 253 in San Francisco and 137 in Sunnyvale. The notices are dated September 2, were processed September 14 and 15, and have a November 2 effective date. The workbook also contains an earlier July action totaling 41 workers. That separate action is not part of the 390. See Raydar's Uber filing analysis.
  • Oracle, Washington: The ESD database lists 359 permanent layoffs for Seattle and remote workers, received September 14 and starting November 13. The company letter says the Seattle sites are not closing.
  • Oracle, California: Three rows in the current EDD workbook list 279 workers in Redwood City, 99 in Santa Clara, and 63 at the Pleasanton campus. The 441 total comes from those three rows. Each has a September 14 notice date, September 15 processed date, and November 13 effective date. See Raydar's Oracle date guide.
  • Microsoft, Washington: The ESD database lists 277 permanent layoffs, received September 22 and starting November 21. The official attachment identifies 252 facility positions and 25 remote positions. It contains 60 Software Engineering rows and 77 rows across Art, Game Producers, Game Design, Technical Art, and Audio Design. Those five families are Raydar's grouping. See the Microsoft title analysis.
  • Expedia, Washington: The ESD database lists 58 permanent Seattle layoffs, received September 22 and starting November 21. The official attachment includes six Senior Finance Analyst rows and four Finance Manager rows, along with technical, tax, risk, program, and leadership titles. See Raydar's Expedia notice analysis.
  • ServiceNow, California: Two rows in the current EDD workbook list 154 workers in Santa Clara and 133 in San Diego, totaling 287. Both show a July 28 notice and processed date and a September 28 effective date. The workbook rows do not supply titles or a cause. See Raydar's ServiceNow date analysis.
  • Qualtrics, Washington: The ESD database lists 117 permanent Seattle-reporting layoffs, received September 2 and starting October 18. The public notice is dated August 19 and includes some remote workers outside Washington. Its enclosure has 117 rows: 116 named job-title values and one unavailable title. Raydar counted 41 individual-contributor rows across software, test, machine learning, security, systems, network, and support; 10 engineering management or engineering program management rows; eight product management rows; and seven product marketing rows. Those are editorial groupings, not a company team map. See Raydar's Qualtrics title analysis.

What the records do not establish

A public WARN row or attachment does not automatically establish:

  • A company's worldwide reduction
  • A product, team, or reporting-line map
  • AI, acquisition, performance, or another cause unless the company says so
  • An individual's severance, benefits, immigration, or other employment terms
  • That every listed person is looking for an external role
  • That an open job was created because of the notice

Coverage also depends on definitions, thresholds, timing, and exceptions, and state requirements can differ from the federal rules. The absence of a public row is not proof that no job loss occurred.

How candidates and hiring teams can use the record

If you are affected, start with your own employer communication. Ask which separation date applies to you, what your last working day is, when benefits change, and whether an internal transfer process exists. The state date is group context.

If you are hiring, use title information as a map, not a verdict. Microsoft's game-related concentration is different from Expedia's finance mix. Ask what someone owned, shipped, or changed. Do not assume a function from the company name, and do not treat a layoff headline as a ready-made outreach list.

The useful habit is simple: name the company, state, site, action, worker count, notice date, state received or processed date, and separation start or window. Then stop where the record stops. That gives readers a clean timeline without turning a filing into a story it cannot support.