The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1988 is a US labor law that protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 calendar-day advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs of employees.
Typically you hear about these notices being filed on the mainland, by large companies looking to downsize. Here in Hawaii, a WARN notice is an infrequent event, and typically becomes the first thing on the 6:00 evening news.
But we are not living in typical times.
Since the beginning of August, 45 companies in the State of Hawaii have filed WARN notices with the State’s Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. These notices only represent announcements by companies in the state that have 100 or more employees. Notices are done in real-time and can be found on the States Dept. of Labor’s WARN website.
One can surmise that the total number of layoffs occurring (or will occur) could be a much higher number when taken into account other news about closures of smaller entities in the last month.
I am sure that there is a lot of other commentaries that can be made on the figures presented here, but for now, here is the list of employers that have filed WARN notices just in the last month in Hawaii.
