CA WARN Notices: SB 617 Rules, Penalties, and Exceptions

California’s WARN Act notice requirements obligate employers with 75 or more workers to give 60 days’ written notice before a mass layoff of 50 or more employees, a plant closure, or a relocation of operations 100 miles or more away. The notice must reach affected employees, the Employment Development Department (EDD), the local workforce development board, and the chief elected official of each affected city and county. Skip it or shorten it, and the employer owes back pay and benefits to every affected worker, plus a civil penalty of up to $500 per day for failing to notify local government. The rules sit in Labor Code sections 1400 through 1413,¹ and starting January 1, 2026, SB 617 adds new content that every notice must include.²

Which Employers Are Covered

Cal/WARN reaches any industrial or commercial facility that employs, or has employed within the preceding 12 months, 75 or more people.¹ The statute counts “persons” without carving out part-timers, so a facility with 80 workers is covered even if 30 of them work fewer than 20 hours a week. That is a meaningful gap from the federal WARN Act, which excludes part-time workers from its 100-employee count.³

The 12-month look-back matters too. If the facility hit 75 at any point during the prior year, Cal/WARN applies, even if the headcount has since fallen. Trimming staff quietly ahead of a big announcement does not remove the obligation.

What Triggers the Notice

Three actions at a covered facility require 60 days’ written notice:

A mass layoff, meaning separation of 50 or more employees within any 30-day period. The 30 days is measured forward and backward from any single separation, so staggering the cuts does not defeat the trigger if the total reaches 50.¹
A relocation of all or substantially all operations to a site 100 or more miles away.¹
A termination, meaning the cessation or substantial cessation of industrial or commercial operations at the facility.¹

Furloughs and Short Layoffs Count

California treats a layoff as a separation from a position for lack of funds or work, with no six-month safe harbor of the sort federal WARN provides. A California appellate court has held that furloughs qualify as layoffs under Cal/WARN regardless of how briefly the employer intends the break to last. Furlough 50 or more people at a covered facility and the 60-day notice is likely required, even if you plan to bring them back in weeks.

What the Notice Must Contain

The EDD sets the baseline content for every Cal/WARN notice:

Name and address of the employment site
A company contact’s name, phone number, and email
Whether the action is permanent or temporary
Expected date of the first separation
Job titles of all affected positions²

SB 617 Additions Effective January 1, 2026

Notices issued on or after January 1, 2026 must also address worker support services. The employer has to state whether it plans to coordinate Rapid Response services through the local workforce development board, through another organization, or not at all. If the employer opts to coordinate services, it must arrange them within 30 days of the notice date.²

Every 2026 notice, regardless of that choice, must also include:

A working email and phone number for the applicable local workforce development board
A prescribed description of Rapid Response activities pointing workers to their nearest America’s Job Center of California for resume help, interview practice, job searches, and training programs
A description of CalFresh, the state’s food assistance program, with the CalFresh benefits helpline number and a link to the CalFresh website²

The EDD publishes the specific language employers must use for the Rapid Response and CalFresh sections, so templates in use before 2026 will need updating.

Who Gets the Notice and How

The written notice must reach all of the following at least 60 days before the first separation:

Each affected employee, or the union representative if the workforce is unionized
The EDD
The local workforce development board
The chief elected official of each city and county government where the action occurs¹

For employees, the EDD accepts three delivery methods: first-class mail, personal delivery (with an optional signed receipt), or inclusion in the pay envelope.² The notice to the EDD itself is submitted by email; there is no online portal. Employers should keep proof of delivery for each recipient.

Exceptions to the 60-Day Rule

Cal/WARN’s exceptions are read narrowly, and the employer has to prove that one applies.

Physical calamity or act of war eliminates the notice requirement.²
Actively seeking capital or business: for a relocation or termination (not a mass layoff), an employer can apply to the Department of Industrial Relations for an exemption if it was actively seeking capital or business and giving notice would have foreclosed the financing. Documentation is required, and DIR decides.²
Project-based and seasonal work: workers in motion picture, construction, drilling, logging, or mining hired with the understanding their job was tied to a specific project are exempt, as are seasonal employees hired for temporary work.²

Even when an exception applies, the employer should give as much notice as circumstances allow and file a WARN notice with an explanation for the shortened timeline.²

Penalties for Skipping or Shortening Notice

Back Pay and Benefits

Under Labor Code section 1402, an employer that fails to give proper notice owes each affected employee back pay at the higher of two rates: the employee’s average regular compensation over the last three years, or the employee’s final rate of pay. On top of wages, the employer must cover the value of lost benefits, including health insurance premiums and any medical expenses the employee incurred that a benefit plan would have covered.¹

The liability period runs for the duration of the violation, capped at the lesser of 60 days or half the total days the employee worked for the employer.¹ A worker with only 40 days of tenure is limited to 20 days of back pay, not 60.

$500-Per-Day Civil Penalty

If the employer also failed to notify the local government, a separate civil penalty of up to $500 per day of the violation applies. The employer can avoid this penalty by paying every affected employee the amounts owed under section 1402 within three weeks of ordering the layoff, relocation, or closure.¹

Offsets That Reduce Liability

The statute lets employers offset three categories against what they owe under section 1402:

Wages the employer paid during the violation period, excluding vacation time that accrued before the violation
Voluntary and unconditional payments not required by any legal obligation
Payments made to third parties on the employee’s behalf during the violation period, such as health insurance premiums or pension contributions¹

Severance can qualify as an offset, but only if it was truly voluntary. Severance already owed under a contract or company policy does not reduce WARN liability.

Workers Can Sue Directly

Employees do not have to wait for an agency to act. Labor Code section 1404 lets any person, including a local government, bring a civil action to establish employer liability. Workers can sue individually, as a class, or both, in any court of competent jurisdiction.¹ Class actions are common because a single violation typically produces dozens or hundreds of identical claims.

How Cal/WARN Goes Further Than Federal WARN

California employers subject to both laws must comply with each, and the stricter requirement wins. The gaps that catch employers most often:

Employer size: federal WARN covers 100 or more employees excluding part-timers; Cal/WARN covers 75 or more, counting everyone.³
Mass layoff threshold: federal WARN requires 500 affected workers, or 50 to 499 if they are at least 33 percent of the workforce; Cal/WARN triggers at 50 with no percentage test.¹
Temporary layoffs: federal WARN generally excludes layoffs shorter than six months; Cal/WARN has no such safe harbor, and short furloughs can qualify.
Notice period: both laws require 60 days.²
Exceptions: federal WARN recognizes unforeseeable business circumstances and natural disaster exceptions that can shorten notice; Cal/WARN’s exceptions are narrower, and the actively-seeking-capital exemption applies only to relocations and terminations, not mass layoffs.

Federal compliance is the floor for a California employer, not the ceiling. Planning around Cal/WARN’s lower thresholds and tighter exceptions is the safer approach.

1
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 1400-1413 – Relocations, Terminations, and Mass Layoffs
2
Employment Development Department. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN)
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2101 – Definitions