WARN Act Layoffs in Illinois

In-Depth Analysis: Layoffs in Illinois

# Illinois Layoffs: An Economic Deep Dive

Executive Summary

Illinois has weathered a significant and sustained wave of workforce reductions, with 3,408 WARN notices affecting 1,769,747 workers across the state since 2015. While the headline figure is substantial, the story is far more complex than raw numbers suggest. The trajectory reveals a state economy fractured by a single catastrophic year—2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns triggered 1,106 notices displacing 806,516 workers—followed by a sustained, elevated plateau of layoffs that persists into 2025. After the 2020 collapse, Illinois has averaged roughly 320 notices per year through 2024, more than double the pre-pandemic annual norm of 150 notices. Even accounting for a decline in 2025 and nascent 2026 filings, the state faces persistent structural challenges across core industries, geographic disparities that advantage suburban and exurban areas while concentrating pain in Chicago, and a roster of household-name employers implementing sustained workforce reductions that suggest secular shifts rather than cyclical downturns.

The COVID Rupture and Structural Aftermath

The 2020 pandemic response obliterated whatever baseline existed. That single year accounted for 45.6 percent of all WARN notices filed in the past decade and 45.5 percent of all affected workers. The 806,516 workers displaced in 2020 dwarfed the total for the preceding five years combined (24,934 workers across 2015-2019). Yet the aftermath has proven far stickier than a typical recession recovery. From 2021 through 2024, Illinois averaged 289 notices annually, maintaining displacement at roughly 190,000 workers per year. The 2025 data, while showing a decline to 354 notices and 142,412 workers, may reflect delayed filings or incomplete year-end reporting rather than genuine improvement. The pattern suggests that while the acute 2020 shock has passed, Illinois's labor market remains in a state of managed contraction rather than recovery.

Industry Patterns: Automation, Consolidation, and Structural Decline

The industry breakdown reveals which sectors are absorbing the most pain and why. Accommodation & Food Services leads by a wide margin, with 344 notices affecting 142,762 workers—roughly one-fifth of all layoffs. This reflects both the pandemic's specific devastation (hospitality was ground zero for lockdowns) and ongoing consolidation in the restaurant and hotel sectors, where large chains are deploying labor-optimization technology and eliminating middle-management layers as they rebound. Manufacturing follows with 320 notices and 116,108 affected workers, positioning it as the second-largest source of displacement. This reflects Illinois's historical dependence on industrial production; the state remains home to major operations from Caterpillar, Methode Electronics, and Energizer, but each is pursuing automation and, in some cases, geographic relocation to lower-cost jurisdictions.

Transportation ranks third with 186 notices and 90,809 workers. This category encompasses both freight logistics (where companies like DHL Supply Chain, Syncreon, and CJ Logistics America are consolidating operations) and school transportation services (Illinois Central School Bus filed 12 notices affecting 6,377 workers). The logistics layoffs reflect supply chain optimization and automation of warehouse and distribution operations, while school transportation reductions may signal demographic shifts and funding pressures in public education.

Healthcare (179 notices, 73,293 workers) and Education (71 notices, 39,839 workers) tell different stories. Healthcare consolidation—hospital mergers, clinic closures, and the shift toward outpatient care—accounts for much of the healthcare displacement. Education layoffs reflect enrollment declines, especially in rural districts, and state budget constraints that have pressured Illinois for years.

Retail (66 notices, 18,594 workers) shows the relentless contraction of brick-and-mortar shopping. Kmart filed 27 notices, Sears filed 14, and Walgreens filed 14—all iconic American retailers either exiting the state entirely or shrinking their footprint. Walmart and Amazon together account for 27 notices, reflecting the former's store rationalization and the latter's fulfillment center workforce optimization. What's notable is that Amazon, often viewed as a growth employer, filed 10 notices affecting 3,516 workers, suggesting that even growth companies continuously optimize and shed labor.

The Information & Technology sector (85 notices, 33,241 workers) and Finance & Insurance (61 notices, 28,874 workers) may seem modest, but their presence indicates that Illinois is not isolated from the tech industry's churning and the financial sector's ongoing restructuring. Wells Fargo filed 10 notices affecting 6,250 workers, exemplifying how large financial institutions continuously consolidate operations and automate back-office functions.

Geographic Concentration and Regional Inequality

Chicago dominates the layoff data with 337 notices affecting 54,694 workers, representing 9.6 percent of all notices and 7.8 percent of all affected workers. While this reflects Chicago's size as the state's economic center and largest employment hub, the proportion is notably lower than the city's share of state employment, suggesting that layoffs are actually less concentrated in Chicago than one might expect. The data point to meaningful geographic dispersion. Schaumburg (19 notices, 1,569 workers), Aurora (19 notices, 1,729 workers), Naperville (17 notices, 1,948 workers), and Joliet (16 notices, 1,911 workers) rank among the top affected cities. This pattern reflects how major employers have decentralized operations away from downtown Chicago, establishing headquarters and major facilities in suburban corporate parks and exurban logistics hubs.

Smaller cities including Peoria (15 notices), Springfield (14 notices), and Decatur (13 notices) appear on the list, but with far fewer affected workers, indicating that while layoffs are geographically distributed, they're not evenly so. The concentration of manufacturing layoffs in places like Peoria (where Caterpillar has substantial operations) and Decatur (a historically industrial hub) suggests that regional economic specialization is creating pockets of acute vulnerability. Chicago's relative resilience may reflect its economic diversification across finance, professional services, healthcare, and higher education—sectors less prone to simple elimination through automation or relocation.

Major Employers: Household Names and Structural Decline

Excluding the anomalous "Company Name" entry (likely a data artifact), the employers filing the most notices reveal Illinois's economic identity and its vulnerabilities. Walgreens tops the list with 14 notices affecting 13,134 workers, making it the single largest source of displacement by affected workers. Hyatt Corporation follows with 13 notices and 13,230 workers—extraordinary scale, reflecting the hotel chain's consolidation and automation of its operational footprint. Energizer, a manufacturing and consumer goods company, filed 9 notices affecting 16,290 workers, suggesting major restructuring or site consolidation. These are not small companies downsizing modestly; they are major employers radically reengineering their operations.

CF Management-IL LLC (27 notices, 3,913 workers) and Kmart (27 notices, 1,085 workers) represent different trajectories. Kmart was an existential collapse—the retail chain's bankruptcy and liquidation triggered multiple notices as remaining stores closed. CF Management suggests an entity engaged in repeated facility closures or operational contractions. Walmart (17 notices, 7,033 workers) illustrates how even dominant retailers continuously rationalize store portfolios. Wells Fargo (10 notices, 6,250 workers) and CJ Logistics America (10 notices, 4,685 workers) demonstrate that financial and logistics firms are equally active in restructuring.

The most striking observation is that very few of these employers are collapsing entirely (except Kmart and arguably Sears). Instead, they are continuously optimizing—closing underperforming units, consolidating operations, automating functions, and shifting labor to lower-cost geographies. This is structural churn, not economic crisis. Yet for the affected workers, the distinction is academic.

Historical Trajectory: From Baseline to Plateau

The year-by-year data reveals an economy still adjusting to the pandemic's aftermath rather than a state experiencing steady improvement. From 2015 through 2019, Illinois averaged 153 notices and 4,899 affected workers annually. These figures represent the pre-pandemic baseline—a state managing routine workforce adjustments in a generally functional labor market. The 2020 disruption was unprecedented: 1,106 notices and 806,516 workers, roughly seven times the prior annual norm.

Recovery did not follow the expected V-shaped trajectory. Instead, 2021 saw 232 notices affecting 161,787 workers, 2022 saw 266 notices affecting 175,303 workers, and 2023 saw 329 notices affecting 244,494 workers. The trend line from 2021 onward shows gradual deterioration, with 2023 representing the worst post-pandemic year. The 2024 data mirrors 2023 (329 notices, 211,683 workers), and while 2025 shows a decline, the current trajectory does not suggest a return to pre-pandemic norms. Illinois is not recovering; it is adjusting downward.

Economic Context: Illinois's Structural Profile

Illinois's layoff patterns cannot be divorced from the state's broader economic structure. The state's economic base has historically rested on three pillars: manufacturing (especially heavy equipment, automotive parts, and machinery), transportation and logistics (the confluence of highways, rail, and the Port of Chicago), and financial services (particularly in the Chicago Loop). Each pillar is under pressure.

Manufacturing employment in Illinois has declined by nearly two-thirds since its 2000 peak, a national trend accelerated by automation and offshoring. The presence of Caterpillar, Methode Electronics, and smaller industrial firms on the WARN list suggests that the state's remaining manufacturing base is undergoing accelerated restructuring. The transportation and logistics sector faces automation of warehouses and distribution centers, visible in the repeated notices from DHL, Syncreon, and CJ Logistics. Financial services, once concentrated in Chicago, has seen significant employment declines as banking operations have consolidated and shifted to lower-cost centers, and as fintech has eliminated many traditional roles.

Meanwhile, Illinois's emerging economic engines—healthcare, higher education, professional services, and technology—are growing but not fast enough to absorb displaced workers. Healthcare employment is expanding, yet large employers file WARN notices as they consolidate and optimize. Technology sector employment in Illinois lags peer states like California and Texas. The state's tax burden and regulatory environment have been cited as deterrents to business relocation, though the data does not isolate this as a specific driver.

Chicago's resilience as a global financial and professional services center provides some counterbalance. The presence of major law firms, consulting practices, insurance companies, and healthcare systems creates a professional economy less vulnerable to commodity competition. However, this sophisticated economy offers limited entry points for workers displaced from retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and logistics sectors. Illinois is experiencing a mismatch between the skills and locations of displaced workers and the growing opportunities in high-value services.

Outlook and Policy Implications

The trajectory through early 2026 suggests that Illinois should prepare for sustained elevated layoff activity rather than expecting sharp improvement. Several forces will likely persist. Retail consolidation will continue as e-commerce further displaces brick-and-mortar employment. Automation in logistics and manufacturing will advance, driven by labor cost pressures and technological capability. Healthcare consolidation will continue as hospital systems pursue efficiency gains. The hospitality sector, while past its 2020 nadir, remains volatile and prone to optimization.

Workers and job seekers should recognize that layoffs filed in 2025 and 2026 often reflect decisions made months earlier—they are not early warnings but formalizations of already-determined outcomes. For workers in retail, hospitality, and logistics, the direction is clear: these sectors are structurally shrinking in Illinois. Retraining toward healthcare, skilled trades, and professional services offers better long-term prospects, though such transitions require time and often education or certification.

Policymakers face difficult choices. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity administers the state WARN Act and collects this data, but the agency has limited direct leverage over corporate restructuring decisions. Policies aimed at attracting new employers, supporting workforce retraining, and addressing tax and regulatory burden are reasonable, but they operate on long horizons. Immediate support for displaced workers—expanded unemployment benefits, bridge programs for those approaching benefit exhaustion, and subsidized training—offers more direct impact.

The data also suggests that geographic policy may matter. Suburban and exurban areas appear to be absorbing significant layoffs, suggesting that development patterns favoring concentration in downtown Chicago may be shifting. Policies that support regional development and reduce geographic concentration of economic opportunity could help distribute prosperity more evenly, though this is a long-term strategy.

Illinois is not experiencing an acute crisis but a managed contraction. The state's major employers are continuously restructuring, reflecting global economic forces beyond any governor's reach. The layoff data, tracked meticulously by WARN Firehose, illuminate an economy in transition—one where growth exists in pockets, but displacement persists across broad swaths of the employment base.