WARN Act Layoffs in St, Illinois

Analysis: Layoffs in St, Illinois

# Economic Analysis of Layoffs in St, Illinois

Overview: Scale and Significance of Workforce Displacement

St, Illinois has experienced substantial workforce disruption over the past five years, with 14 WARN notices affecting 26,298 workers. This scale of displacement represents a significant economic shock to the region, particularly given that these figures capture only formally notified mass layoffs—typically defined as 50 or more workers at a single site. The concentration of impact is striking: nearly all affected workers fall within a narrow band of approximately 2,000-4,000 individuals per employer, suggesting systemic restructuring rather than scattered workforce adjustments across the region's economy.

The geographic concentration of St's layoff activity warrants particular attention. Rather than representing isolated incidents, these 14 notices suggest underlying structural vulnerabilities in the local economy. The fact that American Water Resources, LLC alone accounts for 4,048 workers across two separate notices demonstrates how dependent the region has become on a small number of major employers. For context, 26,298 displaced workers represents a substantial portion of the total regional workforce, indicating that this area faces genuine economic headwinds requiring policy attention and business community adaptation.

Dominant Employers and Restructuring Patterns

American Water Resources, LLC emerges as the single largest source of workforce displacement in St, with two separate WARN notices totaling 4,048 affected workers. This dual filing suggests a staged restructuring rather than a sudden crisis, possibly reflecting rolling consolidations, facility closures, or operational realignment across multiple sites. The company's presence as the leading employer in layoff activity indicates that utilities and water management constitute a significant portion of St's employment base, and that sector is undergoing meaningful transformation.

Beyond the utility sector, St's layoff landscape reveals heavy reliance on logistics, manufacturing, and event services. PECO Pallet, Inc, Ryder Integrated Logistics, Inc, and Vermilion Valley Produce collectively displaced 6,070 workers through supply chain and logistics operations. This clustering suggests that St may have developed competitive advantages in distribution and supply chain management, but these advantages appear vulnerable to broader market consolidation or automation pressures. The presence of manufacturing firms like Nucor Tubular Products Chicago, NoTrax USA, Inc, and Plymouth Tube Company—each filing single notices affecting roughly 2,020-2,024 workers—indicates a secondary manufacturing cluster experiencing concurrent pressure.

Acero Charter Schools, Inc. (Octavio Paz Elementary) presents a notable anomaly in this landscape. As the only education-sector employer in the dataset, this charter school's 2,025-worker notice suggests not a typical layoff but rather a school closure or network-wide restructuring. This differs fundamentally from private-sector workforce reductions and points toward distinct policy challenges in the education sector, potentially reflecting enrollment declines, funding pressures, or governance changes affecting Chicago-area charter operations.

The most striking outlier is Production Resource Group, LLC, which filed a WARN notice for only 3 workers—orders of magnitude smaller than other filers. This notice likely represents a facility-specific closure within a larger organization, demonstrating that even major corporations sometimes experience targeted facility shutdowns below the typical mass layoff threshold.

Industry Dynamics and Structural Forces

The data reveals a St economy heavily concentrated in capital-intensive, logistics-dependent, and manufacturing-oriented sectors. Transportation and education represent the only formally categorized industries in the dataset, yet this classification obscures the underlying composition. Manufacturing and supply chain operations dominate the employer list, suggesting that St serves as a regional distribution and production hub.

The structural forces driving these layoffs appear multifaceted. Manufacturing employers including Nucor Tubular Products Chicago and Plymouth Tube Company likely face pressures from automation, industry consolidation, and competition from foreign producers—long-running trends affecting Midwest manufacturing. The clustering of logistics employers reflects both the strength of the existing supply chain infrastructure and its vulnerability to automation and route optimization. Companies like Ryder Integrated Logistics, Inc and Vermilion Valley Produce operate in sectors undergoing rapid technological change and consolidation, creating pressure to reduce workforce size as a proportion of operations.

The utility sector's significant presence through American Water Resources, LLC suggests St may serve as a regional operations hub for water management or treatment services. This sector's dual WARN filings imply operational restructuring, possibly driven by regulatory changes, asset sales, or efficiency initiatives common in utility consolidation.

Historical Trajectory: Timing and Acceleration

Layoff activity in St demonstrates a clear temporal pattern with concerning implications for recent years. The period from 2020 to 2025 shows an uneven distribution, with 2020 accounting for six notices during the pandemic-driven economic disruption. Following a relative lull in 2021-2022, activity accelerated sharply in 2024 and 2025, when seven combined notices affected workers. The 2023 baseline of a single notice provided only temporary relief.

The recent acceleration—with 2024 and 2025 accounting for seven of the fourteen total notices—suggests layoff pressures are intensifying rather than subsiding. This trajectory contradicts broader Illinois economic recovery narratives and indicates that St faces persistent or worsening employment challenges despite improving state-level economic conditions. The shift from pandemic-driven disruption in 2020 toward what appears to be structural adjustment in 2024-2025 carries troubling implications. Pandemic-era layoffs often reflected temporary operational disruptions; recent notices more likely reflect permanent workforce reductions tied to industry consolidation, automation, or competitive repositioning.

Local Economic Impact and Labor Market Consequences

The displacement of 26,298 workers across 14 notices carries profound implications for St's local labor market and economic stability. This magnitude of workforce dislocation—approximately 2.1 notices per year over the past five years—creates ongoing churn in employment, wages, and community stability. The concentration of layoffs among large employers means that individual notices affect entire neighborhoods and family networks simultaneously, amplifying economic trauma beyond simple job loss statistics.

The occupational composition of displaced workers likely differs significantly across employers. Manufacturing and utility workers often possess industry-specific skills with limited transferability to growing sectors, potentially extending unemployment duration. Logistics workers may face better transitional prospects given the proliferation of warehousing and distribution operations throughout Illinois, yet wage trajectories typically decline in re-employment. The charter school closure represented by Acero Charter Schools, Inc. disrupts educational services and displaces teaching professionals, creating distinct community impact separate from private-sector job loss.

Wage replacement poses a critical concern. Utility workers and manufacturing technicians typically earn wages significantly above regional median income; displaced workers securing new employment often face 15-30 percent wage reductions. For a regional workforce already displaced by 26,298 workers, aggregate earning capacity deterioration translates directly into reduced consumer spending, lower tax revenue, and increased demand for social services. The cumulative effect extends beyond immediate displacement into secondary economic contraction through multiplier effects.

Regional Context and Comparative Position

St's layoff experience requires framing within broader Illinois economic conditions. While Illinois statewide employment has shown modest recovery, manufacturing-dependent regions and logistics hubs have experienced uneven growth. St's concentration of WARN notices in these sectors positions it as more vulnerable than state averages might suggest. The state's ongoing struggle with manufacturing sector headwinds—reflecting automation, corporate consolidation, and shifting competitive advantages—manifests acutely in St's employer base.

Chicago's dominance as an Illinois economic center and logistics hub shapes St's economic subordination. As a secondary manufacturing and distribution node, St competes directly with other Midwest regions for supply chain operations and manufacturing facilities. The clustering of WARN notices suggests St is losing this competition for new investment and struggling to retain existing operations. Major employers like Nucor Tubular Products Chicago and the Ryder logistics operation represent the type of operations increasingly vulnerable to consolidation or relocation as corporations optimize networks across larger geographic areas.

The data indicates that St lacks significant presence in growth industries—technology, professional services, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing remain underrepresented in the layoff dataset primarily because they constitute small portions of St's employment base. This structural imbalance means that even as statewide employment recovers, St's dependent position on manufacturing and logistics creates persistent vulnerability to sector-specific downturns and industry-wide restructuring.