Arizona WARN Act: Notice Requirements, Exceptions, and Remedies

The Arizona WARN Act is really the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act applied in Arizona: the state has no separate advance-notice law, so 29 U.S.C. §§ 2101–2109 is the only statute requiring employers to warn workers before a large layoff or shutdown. Covered employers must give 60 days’ written notice before a plant closing or mass layoff, and workers who don’t get that notice can sue for back pay and lost benefits in federal court.

Which Arizona Employers Are Covered

WARN reaches private businesses with at least 100 full-time employees. A business also qualifies if it employs 100 or more workers (including part-timers) who together put in at least 4,000 hours per week, overtime excluded.¹ The second test keeps large employers from avoiding the law by relying on part-time schedules.

A part-time employee, for this count, is anyone averaging fewer than 20 hours per week or who has worked fewer than 6 of the past 12 months. Those workers don’t count toward the 100-employee threshold, and they don’t count when figuring out whether enough people were affected to trigger notice.

Federal, state, local, and tribal government employers are not covered.² If you work for an Arizona state agency, a county, a city, or a tribal government, WARN does not apply to your employer.

What Triggers the 60-Day Notice

Two events trigger WARN, and both are measured over a 30-day period at a single site of employment.³

Plant Closings

A plant closing is the permanent or temporary shutdown of a single site, or of one or more operating units within a site, that causes 50 or more full-time employees to lose their jobs within 30 days. The word “plant” is misleading. It covers offices, warehouses, retail stores, call centers, and any other workplace.

Mass Layoffs

A mass layoff is a workforce reduction that isn’t a plant closing. It triggers WARN when either:

500 or more full-time workers lose their jobs at a single site within 30 days, regardless of what share of the workforce that is; or
between 50 and 499 full-time workers lose their jobs within 30 days, and that group makes up at least 33% of the full-time workforce at the site.

What Counts as an Employment Loss

Not every separation counts. WARN recognizes three kinds of employment loss: a termination other than a firing for cause, a voluntary departure, or a retirement; a layoff lasting more than six months; and a cut of more than 50% in an individual’s work hours in each month of any six-month period. If an employer calls a layoff short-term and then extends it past six months, the extension counts as an employment loss unless the employer can show the delay came from unforeseeable business conditions and that it gave notice as soon as the longer duration became clear.⁴

Layoffs Done in Waves

Employers can’t avoid WARN by splitting a large reduction into smaller rounds. If two or more groups of workers at the same site lose their jobs in numbers below the thresholds, but together exceed those thresholds within any 90-day window, the law treats the rounds as one event. The employer escapes aggregation only by proving each round had a separate and distinct cause and wasn’t an attempt to evade the law.⁴ If your employer has been cutting staff in waves, this is the rule worth watching.

Who Gets the Notice, and What It Must Say

At least 60 days before the first separation, the employer must send written notice to three parties:⁴

Each affected employee, or the union representing them if the workforce is unionized.
The State Rapid Response Coordinator in the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Workforce Solutions Administration.⁵
The chief elected official of the local government where the site is located (mayor, county executive, or equivalent). If the site crosses jurisdictions, notice goes to the one receiving the highest taxes from the employer.

The notice has to identify the affected site, give a company contact, say whether the action is permanent or temporary, and state the expected date of the first separation along with the schedule for later ones. Notices to individual workers must also be written in language they can understand and must include each person’s expected separation date.⁶

When an Employer Can Give Less Than 60 Days

Three narrow exceptions allow a shorter notice period. Even when one applies, the employer must still give as much notice as it reasonably can and include a brief written explanation of why the period was shortened.⁴

Faltering company. Applies only to plant closings. The employer must have been actively seeking financing or new business that would have avoided the closing and must have reasonably believed, in good faith, that giving notice would have scared off that opportunity.
Unforeseeable business circumstances. The closing or layoff was caused by conditions the employer could not reasonably have predicted when notice would otherwise have been due, such as the sudden loss of a major contract.
Natural disaster. No notice is required when the closing or layoff is a direct result of a flood, earthquake, drought, or similar event.

The employer carries the burden of proving the exception. Courts scrutinize what the employer actually knew and when, so general claims about uncertainty rarely succeed.

What You Can Recover if Your Employer Violated WARN

A worker who didn’t get the required notice can recover back pay for each day of the shortfall. The daily rate is the higher of the worker’s average regular pay over the last three years or the final regular rate. The employer also owes the value of benefits that would have been provided during the notice period, including health insurance premiums and pension contributions.⁷

Two caps apply. Total damages can’t exceed 60 days, and they also can’t exceed half the total days you actually worked for the employer. So a worker employed for 80 days could recover at most 40 days of back pay. The employer’s liability is further reduced by any wages it paid during the violation period, any voluntary unconditional payments it made to you, and any benefit contributions it kept making to third parties on your behalf.⁷

Separately, an employer that fails to notify local government faces a civil penalty of up to $500 for each day of the violation. The employer can avoid that penalty by paying every affected worker in full within three weeks of ordering the shutdown or layoff.

How to File a Claim

WARN claims are enforced through a civil lawsuit in United States District Court. There is no administrative complaint process and no agency to investigate for you. The court may award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party, which makes it easier for workers to find counsel willing to take the case.⁸

Arizona Resources After a Layoff

Arizona employers submit WARN notices to the State Rapid Response Coordinator at the Workforce Solutions Administration, 1789 W. Jefferson St., Phoenix, AZ 85017, or by email at AZRapidResponse@azdes.gov.⁵ You can check whether your employer has filed a notice through the searchable database on the Arizona Job Connection website.

The ARIZONA@WORK network provides no-cost services to displaced workers, including job search help and connections to retraining programs.⁹ These services are available whether or not your employer complied with WARN.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2101 – Definitions
2
Congress.gov. Provisions of the WARN Act
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC Chapter 23 – Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2102 – Notice Required Before Plant Closings and Mass Layoffs
5
Arizona Department of Economic Security. Rapid Response – Workforce Reduction Support
6
eCFR. 20 CFR 639.7 – What Must the Notice Contain
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2104 – Administration and Enforcement of Requirements
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 US Code 2104 – Administration and Enforcement of Requirements
9
ARIZONA@WORK. Rapid Response Layoff Transition Support