Sometimes, job losses are inevitable. Economics or changing marketplace demands can simply make a job, a department, or an entire plant superfluous. Perhaps your employer is relocating, outsourcing certain tasks, or changing its corporate direction.
Layoffs undertaken for financial reasons aren't the fault of the employee or the employer. Even in such situations, however, the federal WARN Act and state plant closing laws (sometimes called "mini-WARN" laws) may give employees some rights as the workplace doors close.
However, neither neither the federal plant closing law nor the state laws in the same category actually forbid closing worksites and dismissing the people who work there. All these laws really do is require that companies give employees a certain amount advance notice that their jobs are going to go away, like it or not.
At most, plant closing laws can provide some income between jobs for employees of companies that fail to provide a warning that they're going to make a mass staff cut—and some punishments that might persuade a company that does not comply with the advance notice requirements of the plant closing laws not to repeat that behavior.
To find out about the federal WARN law and your state's plant closing law (if it has one), select your state from the list below.