Tennessee Layoffs November 2026: WARN Numbers Explained

Tennessee's 2026 layoff tally has not moved in a month: the Layoff Atlas registry still shows 46 WARN notices covering 6,301 reported workers — the same figures as mid-October — and the two Tennessee notices still waiting to take effect last month have now passed, leaving zero notices with future effective dates.

The headline numbers

The full Tennessee archive holds 1,061 non-cancelled imported notices reporting 121,292 workers affected. For 2026: 46 notices, 6,301 workers, about 137 per filing on average.

Against recent history, 2026 is cooler than last year but within the normal range: 2025 brought 52 notices and 8,984 workers (about 173 per filing), so this year has fewer notices and smaller ones. In 2023 the state recorded 54 notices and 5,168 workers; the year-by-year table lists no 2024 notices at all. Earlier years were smaller still — 12 notices and 1,803 workers in 2022, and 22 notices and 2,805 workers in 2021.

The outlier remains 2020, the pandemic year: 268 notices and 36,659 workers, more than five times this year's total.

The big caveat: Tennessee's data comes entirely from secondary sources

In the last 365 days, the archive contains zero eligible official filings for Tennessee: all 1,061 notices are attributed secondary records, with zero direct government records. Three have unavailable worker counts, so totals exclude them.

Tennessee has no "mini-WARN" law of its own: federal WARN rules require employers with 100 or more workers to file 60 days' advance notice of qualifying mass layoffs or plant closures, and Tennessee applies that federal standard. With no official feed among the registry's connected sources, its figures depend on secondary reporting rather than a state-published ledger.

In practice, the 46-notice, 6,301-worker tally is best read as a floor, not a ceiling — a visible slice of layoff activity, not a census. States with official feeds, such as California, New York, and Washington, show richer records in the same registry. Missing coverage is not the same as zero layoffs. And all of these figures are reported plans, not confirmed job losses: a WARN notice says an employer plans to lay off people, and plans change.

What changed since October — and what didn't

Two things changed. First, the pipeline emptied: in October, two Tennessee notices still carried future effective dates, meaning more planned reductions had yet to take effect. Today the registry shows zero notices with future effective dates for Tennessee. Whatever was scheduled has now taken effect, and nothing new is queued behind it.

Second, the national backdrop moved: the US registry now tracks 665 notices affecting 63,159 reported workers in its 90-day window, with 30 counts unavailable, updated November 9. California leads with 20,982 workers in that window, followed by Washington at 17,411, Illinois at 3,432, Maryland at 2,475, and Virginia at 2,473. Tennessee sits outside that top five; its full-year 2026 tally of 6,301 workers is about a tenth of the national 90-day total, though the two windows cover different periods.

What did not change is the Tennessee tally itself: no new 2026 Tennessee notices were added between the October check and this one. That could mean a genuinely quiet month for large Tennessee layoffs, or filings that were never captured by the secondary sources the registry relies on for this state. With no official feed to cross-check, the two look identical from the outside.

The weeks ahead

Nationally, a heavy stretch lies ahead: the week of November 24 carries 9,300 scheduled workers, the heaviest week on the calendar, followed by November 17 at 6,613 and November 10 at 5,477. The week of December 15 holds 5,628 workers, while December 1 and December 8 are much lighter at 2,593 and 1,337. None of these are Tennessee events specifically — Tennessee currently has nothing scheduled — but layoff plans cluster, and late November is shaping up as one of the busiest stretches of the fall.

What to watch next

Three things are worth tracking if you live or work in Tennessee:

1. Coverage, not just counts. The registry's figure of 46 notices is a partial window. If you hear of a local plant closure or mass layoff that never shows up in WARN-derived data, that gap is likely a coverage gap, not proof it didn't happen.
2. The federal threshold. Because Tennessee applies only federal WARN, layoffs at employers with fewer than 100 workers generally never produce a notice. Small and mid-size employer cuts are largely invisible in this data.
3. Whether the quiet month lasts. A month with no new Tennessee notices and an empty pipeline is worth watching. If the registry stays flat while other states keep adding filings, that points to a coverage gap rather than a layoff-free state; if new notices appear, the 2026 total will move off 6,301 for the first time since October.

The bottom line

Tennessee's 2026 WARN record — 46 notices, 6,301 workers — reads as a moderate, cooling year, well below the 2020 peak and trailing last year's pace. The November update adds two facts: the pipeline of scheduled Tennessee layoffs is now empty, and a full month passed without a single new Tennessee notice reaching the registry. Read the tally as one window into Tennessee's labor market — useful, but not the whole building.

Data source: Layoff Atlas