WARN Act Layoffs in Investment Area I, Kansas

Analysis: Layoffs in Investment Area I, Kansas

# Economic Analysis of Layoffs in Investment Area I, Kansas

The Scale and Significance of Workforce Displacement

Investment Area I, Kansas has experienced substantial workforce displacement over the past six years, with 46 WARN notices affecting 2,081 workers across the region. This scale of layoff activity represents a significant economic headwind for a regional labor market. To contextualize this figure: assuming Investment Area I maintains a regional workforce of roughly 25,000–30,000 people across all sectors, these 2,081 displaced workers represent between 7–8 percent of the total employment base over a six-year period. That concentration of job losses carries material consequences for household incomes, local tax revenues, and community stability.

The distribution of these layoffs is heavily skewed. The top four employers account for 1,185 workers, or 57 percent of all displacement. This concentration reveals a critical vulnerability in Investment Area I's economic structure: the region's employment base depends heavily on a narrow roster of large employers, many of whom operate in sectors experiencing secular decline or structural headwinds. When even one or two anchor employers downsize, the ripple effects across local supply chains, consumer spending, and municipal tax bases can be severe.

Retail Collapse and the Exide Technology Shock

The most striking feature of Investment Area I's layoff landscape is the dominance of retail sector closures and consolidations. JCPenney, operating through Penney OpCo LLC, filed four separate WARN notices displacing 69 workers. Kmart filed two notices affecting 81 workers. Dillard's, Inc., Sears, and Gordmans each contributed additional notices. Combined, these department store and apparel retailers account for at least 238 workers displaced across multiple notices. This pattern reflects the well-documented structural collapse of traditional brick-and-mortar retail, accelerated by e-commerce competition and changing consumer purchasing behavior. The fact that JCPenney appears four times in the data rather than as a single large notice suggests a pattern of rolling closures and staged workforce reductions typical of retail consolidation in declining markets.

Yet retail's visibility in the layoff data obscures an even larger single-employer shock. Exide Technologies, a battery manufacturer, filed one notice affecting 765 workers—37 percent of all workers displaced in the region over the six-year period. This single event dwarfs all retail-related layoffs combined. Battery manufacturing and metal recycling facilities operate with thin margins and are highly sensitive to commodity prices, input cost inflation, and regulatory compliance. A workforce reduction of this magnitude at one facility points to either a plant closure, severe operational restructuring, or shifts in manufacturing location—any of which would constitute a devastating blow to Investment Area I's industrial base.

Supporting Exide's shock, Excel Industries (and the related Excel Industies Inc) filed notices affecting 341 workers combined. Excel manufactures outdoor power equipment, a sector cyclically sensitive to consumer spending and housing market health. These two manufacturing facilities together account for 1,106 workers, or 53 percent of all displacement in the region. Manufacturing losses at this scale indicate that Investment Area I faces headwinds across both basic materials processing (battery manufacturing) and durable goods production.

Industry Structure and Sectoral Vulnerabilities

The industry breakdown reveals a region whose employment is distributed across vulnerable sectors with limited resilience. The data explicitly categorizes only seven industry groups, though the implicit breakdown shows retail concentration, massive manufacturing exposure, and thin representation in high-growth sectors like technology or professional services.

Manufacturing accounts for at least 32 workers in the explicit data, though the true figure exceeds 1,200 when Exide Technologies and Excel Industries are properly classified. This means that manufacturing has likely generated between 50–70 percent of all layoffs in the region. The sector is being squeezed from multiple directions: commodity price volatility, automation-driven productivity improvements that eliminate labor hours, supply chain rationalization, and in some cases, shifting production to lower-cost geographies.

Retail and food service together account for another meaningful share. Golden Corral, Daymon Worldwide, and Gordmans collectively displaced 94 workers. These are consumer-facing businesses dependent on discretionary spending and local population density. Their layoffs suggest either operational consolidation or soft demand conditions in the Investment Area I market.

Healthcare appears once through Signify Health, a home health and hospice provider, which filed a notice affecting 159 workers. This represents a notable departure from national trends, where healthcare has been one of the few consistent job-growth sectors. A workforce reduction at a healthcare firm may reflect operational restructuring, payer reimbursement pressure, or regional population dynamics that reduce demand for home health services.

The one government sector notice—Larned Juvenile Correctional Facility with 85 workers—reflects budget constraints at the state level rather than market dynamics. Public employment reductions of this scale affect worker morale and local spending but operate under different logic than private-sector layoffs.

Temporal Trends: Intensity and Concentration

The distribution of notices across years shows volatility rather than a smooth trend. The period from 2016–2017 saw the highest activity, with 26 notices affecting a cumulative 1,299+ workers during that two-year span. This suggests a specific period of acute economic stress or major employer restructuring decisions concentrated in the mid-2010s. By contrast, 2018–2019 saw only 11 combined notices, indicating some stabilization or consolidation. The rebound to eight notices in 2020, a year marked by pandemic-driven disruptions, followed by a sharp decline to just one notice in 2021, is notable. The 2020 uptick may reflect coronavirus-related closures, while the 2021 collapse in notices could indicate either genuine stabilization, a shift to smaller layoffs below the WARN threshold, or administrative delays in notice filing.

The concentration of activity early in the observation period suggests that Investment Area I experienced an acute adjustment phase around 2016–2017, possibly triggered by retail bankruptcies (Kmart, Sears, and JCPenney were all under severe stress during this window) or manufacturing plant consolidations. The subsequent decline does not necessarily indicate economic recovery, but rather that major adjustments have already occurred and the marginal adjustment phase is behind the region.

Local Economic Impact and Labor Market Consequences

An average of 2,081 workers displaced across six years represents roughly 347 workers annually. For a smaller regional economy, this throughput creates sustained pressure on unemployment rates, household income stability, and municipal revenues. Each notice affects not only the individual worker but their household's consumption patterns, their dependents' educational outcomes, and their long-term earnings trajectory. Displaced manufacturing workers in their 40s and 50s often face particular difficulty re-entering the labor market at comparable wage levels.

The sectoral composition of displacement—weighted toward manufacturing, retail, and lower-wage services—indicates that Investment Area I is losing employment in sectors where workers lack advanced educational credentials and where retraining opportunities may be limited. The region has not demonstrated offsetting job creation in higher-wage sectors like professional services, technology, or specialized healthcare. This creates a structural mismatch between the skills of the available labor force and the requirements of emerging job opportunities. Long-term, this dynamic depresses average wages and household incomes in the region.

The concentration of displacement among a handful of major employers also raises questions about economic resilience. When Exide Technologies alone accounts for over one-third of all layoffs, the region's economic health becomes hostage to a single facility's operational decisions. Small regions with diverse employer bases weather workforce shocks more effectively than those dependent on a few large anchors.

Regional Context Within Kansas

Kansas as a state has experienced significant manufacturing and agricultural employment declines over the past decade, reflecting broader Midwestern trends. Investment Area I's experience—with manufacturing comprising the majority of displacement—aligns with this regional pattern. However, the scale of the Exide shock (765 workers) is extreme even by Kansas standards and suggests that this particular region may have faced more acute disruption than some other Kansas labor markets.

The retail collapse evident in Investment Area I's data mirrors nationwide trends but may be magnified in a smaller region where department store closures eliminate a significant portion of downtown commercial activity. Population loss in rural Kansas counties compounds this effect, as shrinking population bases cannot support traditional retail infrastructure. Investment Area I's heavy retail layoff activity suggests a community grappling with the transition from a retail-dependent economy to alternatives that have not yet materialized.

Compared to larger Kansas metros (Kansas City, Wichita, Topeka), Investment Area I appears more vulnerable to single-employer shocks and lacks the economic diversification that larger markets provide. This structural difference shapes long-term economic trajectories, affecting not only current workers but also the region's ability to attract and retain business investment.