Like most modern legislation, the warn act is way too long and thus filled with loopholes.

Lawyers have already come up with many ways to avoid it and companies are putting them to good use.

The WARN Act requires 60 days of notice before a mass termination...or 60 days of severance. The primary benefit of the latter is that the company can terminate benefits sooner, though this is a relative fraction of wage costs.

Companies aren't using loopholes, they're literally just following one of the options provided by the WARN Act.

As of Dec 2022, the US unemployment rate was 3.5% based on a count of 5.7MM unemployed people. Which means those 220,000 would still only raise the unemployment rate to 3.6%

And that's assuming all those 220,000 were laid off in the US which they were not.

> Unemployment doesn’t show laid off employees who aren’t yet collecting unemployment benefits.

That is not true. The fact that they are receiving severance does not change their classification as unemployed.

The unemployment rate, which is calculated using a standard approach across the country, is completely unrelated to unemployment benefits, which are handled at the state level with a high degree of variation.

In fact, workers are counted as unemployed even if the layoffs are temporary and they are expected to be recalled (e.g. furlough).

They're often kept on as employees to satisfy the WARN act. This isn't actually severance, and they're not actually unemployed at that point.

> They're often kept on as employees to satisfy the WARN act. This isn't actually severance, and they're not actually unemployed at that point.

No, BLS does consider them as unemployed.

Contrary to commonly held opinion, the unemployment rate isn't based on who's collecting unemployment.

It's based on people who for the following three criteria. They: 1) don't have a job, 2) have looked for a job within the previous four weeks, and 3) are available to work at the present time.

> It's based on people who for the following three criteria. They: 1) don't have a job, 2) have looked for a job within the previous four weeks, and 3) are available to work at the present time.

You're correct.

To add to that, in some cases (such as layoffs), even the second criteria can be relaxed. For example, if a person is laid off but expected to be recalled, they don't need to have job-seeking activity to be considered unemployed for statistical purposes. That's just one example.

It also doesn't show people who are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits whether or not they got a job.

It's a really misleading stat.

> Unemployment doesn’t show laid off employees who aren’t yet collecting unemployment benefits. These tech workers got at least 60 days of severance thanks to the warn act.

I could be wrong but somebody who makes like... on average $150k-$200k/yr (average tech worker, low from what I've read here on comments, most "high level" people have total comp closer to $300k-$500k/yr but I'll ignore any stock grants and just focus on salary) is making like $12.5k/mo-$16.6k/mo gross

> The weekly benefit rate is capped at a maximum amount based on the state minimum wage. For 2022, the maximum weekly benefit rate is $804. For 2023, the maximum weekly benefit rate is $830.

> Your weekly benefit amount will be about 50 percent of your average weekly wage up to a state maximum of $857.

Just some random quick Googles since it varies by state.

On the low end these laid off people made $2,880/week gross.

The absolute max the state will provide is 30% of their gross pay, aka a 70% pay reduction.

I wonder how many will even bother to file/go through the headache/process. Sounds like that effort would be better spent burning leet code practice to find an actual job.

But I say that as somebody who isn't desperate/has ample savings. I'm sure I would say something different otherwise.