WARN Act Layoffs in Minnesota

In-Depth Analysis: Layoffs in Minnesota

Executive Summary: Minnesota's Layoff Landscape

Minnesota has experienced a significant and sustained wave of workforce reductions over the past eight years, with 2,451 WARN notices affecting 114,765 workers. The state's layoff trajectory reveals a labor market undergoing structural transformation rather than cyclical adjustment. The data shows a dramatic escalation beginning in 2018 and peaking in 2020 at 369 notices displacing 36,907 workers—the pandemic year that reshaped employment across sectors. However, the present moment offers no reassurance for those seeking stability: 2025 represents the second-highest year on record with 385 notices and 9,519 affected workers, while 2024 also exceeded 6,600 displaced workers. This suggests Minnesota faces not a temporary disruption but a persistent reconfiguration of its employment base, driven by automation, retail consolidation, and structural shifts in consumer behavior and manufacturing.

The concentration of displacement in Minnesota's two largest metropolitan areas—Minneapolis and St. Paul accounting for 631 notices and 24,301 workers—underscores how these urban centers bear disproportionate adjustment costs. Simultaneously, the dominance of a handful of major retailers and hospitality operators in the layoff data reveals how concentrated market dynamics in consumer-facing industries are cascading through local economies.

The Retail and Hospitality Crisis: Structural Decline in Consumer-Facing Industries

The most striking feature of Minnesota's layoff landscape is the overwhelming dominance of Retail Trade and Accommodation & Food Services, which together account for 752 notices affecting 23,591 workers—roughly 21 percent of all displacement activity. These figures represent not temporary staffing adjustments but evidence of permanent contraction in sectors that have historically anchored mid-skill employment across the state.

Retail collapse drives much of this displacement. The top employer filing WARN notices is Herberger's, the Minnesota-based department store chain, which filed 34 notices displacing 3,118 workers. Toys 'R' Us contributed 10 notices affecting 388 workers. Sears filed 9 notices for 737 workers. When combined with Yelloh! (20 notices, 372 workers), Bed Bath & Beyond (6 notices, 78 workers), Forever 21 (4 notices, 72 workers), Shopko (4 notices, 74 workers), and Macy's (4 notices, 212 workers), the retail sector alone accounts for a staggering convergence of store closures and workforce contractions. These are not primarily automation stories—they reflect the structural collapse of traditional retail in response to e-commerce competition and changing consumer preferences.

Accommodation & Food Services mirrors this pattern through different mechanisms. The presence of Taco John's (6 notices, 442 workers), Outback Steakhouse (4 notices, 160 workers), and numerous hospitality operations suggests that quick-service and casual dining establishments face margin compression from labor cost inflation, changing consumer preferences toward ghost kitchens and delivery, and reduced traffic volumes. Unlike retail, which faces binary store closure decisions, food service layoffs indicate operational contraction and menu consolidation rather than full-chain liquidation.

What distinguishes this crisis from temporary recession is its permanence. A Toys 'R' Us closure or Herberger's store shutdown eliminates retail square footage that will not be reoccupied by similar operations. The workers displaced—typically workers in their 40s and 50s with limited transferable credentials—face genuine career transition challenges. Minnesota has not generated sufficient higher-wage service employment to absorb these workers, explaining why retail and hospitality layoffs create persistent, visible community disruption.

Manufacturing's Vulnerability: Automation and Global Competition

Manufacturing, the second-largest industry by displacement volume, filed 224 notices affecting 16,740 workers. This sector's large absolute impact masks an important distinction: manufacturing displacement occurs among fewer notices but larger facilities, indicating that layoffs hit when they occur. Shutterfly, a photo product manufacturer, filed 4 notices affecting 686 workers. Hutchinson Technology, Nortech Systems, and Apple Valley Foods each filed 4 notices affecting 320, 258, and 234 workers respectively. Ardent Mills contributed 4 notices for 156 workers.

Minnesota's manufacturing base reflects the state's historical strength in precision equipment, food processing, and medical devices. Yet the WARN data suggests this base faces dual pressures. First, global competition and tariff dynamics have made U.S.-based production less cost-competitive for standardized goods. Second, automation reduces labor requirements even for companies that maintain domestic operations. A facility that modernizes its production line may retain manufacturing output while cutting workforce by 30 to 50 percent—not a closure but a transformation that eliminates jobs nonetheless.

The presence of Hutchinson Technology and Nortech Systems in the layoff data specifically reflects headwinds in precision manufacturing and electronics assembly, sectors where Minnesota historically competed on quality and engineering but increasingly cannot match offshore wage structures. These are not temporary layoffs but permanent workforce reductions reflecting long-term capacity decisions.

Healthcare and Education: Unexpected Vulnerabilities

Healthcare and Education filed 149 and 65 notices respectively, affecting 7,728 and 4,901 workers. These sectors warrant specific attention because they diverge from conventional recession narratives and reflect structural policy choices rather than demand shifts.

The presence of Mayo Clinic (4 notices, 50 workers), Science Museum (4 notices, 402 workers), and Shriners Hospital (4 notices, 192 workers) indicates that even well-capitalized healthcare and mission-driven organizations pursue workforce optimization. Science Museum layoffs are particularly notable—these reflect post-pandemic demand contraction in cultural institutions but also persistent revenue pressure in the nonprofit museum sector. Healthcare layoffs may reflect consolidation pressures, integration of acquired practices, and shift toward higher-staffing-efficiency care delivery models.

Education layoffs (65 notices) likely reflect a combination of enrollment pressure in higher education, post-pandemic budget adjustments in K-12, and administrative consolidation. Minnesota's substantial higher education footprint—the University of Minnesota system, private colleges including Carleton and St. Olaf—means that any systemwide enrollment or funding pressure cascades into layoff notices.

Geographic Concentration and Urban Vulnerability

Minneapolis and St. Paul account for 631 WARN notices affecting 24,301 workers, representing 55 percent of all displaced workers. This concentration reflects both the rational geographic clustering of corporate headquarters and the reality that Twin Cities metro layoffs carry outsized economic and political weight. A 200-person layoff at a Herberger's distribution center in Minneapolis represents a significant local shock to warehouse and logistics employment.

Rochester, home to Mayo Clinic, filed 98 notices affecting 2,777 workers. Bloomington, the corporate headquarters center for best-in-class retailers and logistics firms, reported 84 notices affecting 6,503 workers—a notably high worker-per-notice ratio indicating large facilities. Duluth, the northern gateway city, filed 62 notices affecting 3,962 workers, suggesting that even smaller metros experience substantial displacement.

This geographic pattern matters because Minnesota's smaller cities and rural areas lack the corporate headquarters density, venture capital ecosystem, and occupational diversity that allow large metros to absorb displaced workers. A Taco John's closure in Mankato eliminates restaurant jobs in a labor market with fewer alternative employer options than Minneapolis offers. Geographic concentration of layoffs in the Twin Cities metro masks the proportionally larger impact on workers in secondary markets.

Historical Trajectory: Acceleration Without Resolution

The year-over-year evolution of WARN notices reveals a labor market in sustained disruption. The 2019 baseline of 542 notices affecting 22,580 workers represents a pre-pandemic equilibrium level. The 2020 pandemic shock—369 notices affecting 36,907 workers—was severe but temporary relative to the layoff notices filed. The critical observation is that post-pandemic recovery failed to materialize: 2023 generated 232 notices affecting 11,653 workers, while 2024 saw 379 notices (6,622 workers) and 2025 has already reached 385 notices (9,519 workers).

This pattern rejects both the "temporary disruption" and "strong recovery" narratives. Instead, it suggests that 2019 represented the last moment of labor market equilibrium. The subsequent years reveal not recovery to a prior state but establishment of a new, higher baseline of structural displacement. Companies that conducted workforce reductions in 2020 largely did not rehire those workers—instead, they reengineered operations around lower headcount. New displacement notices in 2023-2025 reflect continuing sector-specific contractions (retail, hospitality) and ongoing automation-driven adjustments.

The pattern for 2026, with only 134 notices projected, likely reflects incomplete data entry rather than substantive reduction in displacement activity.

Context: Minnesota's Economic Profile and Labor Market Structure

Minnesota's economy is anchored in healthcare, technology, retail corporate headquarters, and manufacturing. This mix creates unique vulnerabilities visible in the WARN data. The state's retail headquarters presence (Target, Best Buy historically, Herberger's) meant that retail consolidation hit the state disproportionately hard. The presence of Mayo Clinic and substantial healthcare infrastructure created expectations of employment stability that recent notices challenge. The strength of tech employment in Minneapolis created pockets of resilience even as manufacturing contracted.

The information technology sector filed only 45 notices affecting 3,052 workers—a notably low figure given Minneapolis's positioning as a secondary tech hub. This likely reflects that Minnesota's tech companies (UnitedHealth, Best Buy's online operations, Target's technology divisions) either maintained recent hiring or avoided large-scale WARN-triggering layoffs. However, the recent industry-wide tech downsizing cycle may be underrepresented in this historical WARN data.

Outlook: Emerging Pressures and Worker Implications

The current trajectory suggests Minnesota should anticipate continued displacement in retail and hospitality as e-commerce adoption and labor cost pressures accelerate. The presence of restaurant chains and quick-service operations in layoff notices indicates that the "restaurant recovery" narrative applies unevenly—while fine dining and high-end establishments recovered post-pandemic, mid-market casual dining faces structural pressures.

Manufacturing displacement will likely continue as automation advances and companies complete their efficiency reengineering. Healthcare consolidation may accelerate if merger activity increases. Education layoffs will persist if enrollment pressures continue in higher education.

For workers, the data indicates that sector matters enormously. Retail and hospitality workers face the most acute displacement risk and the fewest reemployment pathways to equivalent-wage positions. Manufacturing workers, while experiencing displacement in absolute terms, retain more transferable credentials and capital equipment familiarity. Healthcare workers hold the most stable positions, though administrative consolidation poses ongoing risks.

Policymakers should recognize that Minnesota's displacement is structural rather than cyclical. Workforce development investments should concentrate on transitional support for 45-65-year-old workers in retail and hospitality, occupational training for manufacturing workers transitioning to different sectors, and support for entrepreneurs in secondary cities who might create local employment to offset headquarters-based corporate layoffs.