got laid off last month. technically received a WARN Act notice but it was only 18 days, not the required 60. my company is above 100 employees so the federal law should apply.
spent about 3 days in a fog before i actually looked into this. here's what i found out and what i did:
the law: federal WARN Act requires 60 days advance notice OR 60 days pay-in-lieu for employers with 100+ full-time employees doing a mass layoff (50+ workers, or 1/3 of workforce). some states (CA, NJ, NY) have their own stricter versions. california's plant closure law triggers at 75 employees and no threshold on percentage.
what happened to me: company gave 18 days notice and paid out the rest as severance on top of standard severance. so i actually got 60-day WARN pay + 8 weeks standard severance. that matters a lot for unemployment eligibility timing in my state.
what to check: does your state have its own WARN law? if so, which applies (federal or state, whichever is more favorable to you) is the WARN pay being called "severance" in your agreement? it shouldn't be. they're different buckets and affect unemployment insurance differently in most states if the company DID violate WARN and just handed you a check without explaining it, you may have a wage claim. dol.gov has the filing path but honestly an employment attorney consult (most do free 30 min) is faster
i am not an attorney. this is my experience only. but i wasted like a week not knowing this distinction and it actually would have affected how i timed filing for unemployment.
one more thing: if your layoff date is stated in the notice, UI eligibility typically starts the day AFTER that date, not the day you received the notice. get that date right in your paperwork.