Tracking mass layoff and plant closure notices filed under the WARN Act in Missouri, updated daily. Explore the interactive data →
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# Missouri's Layoff Landscape: A Detailed Economic Analysis
Missouri has experienced 996 WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notices affecting 140,893 workers over the period covered by this dataset—a staggering figure that underscores the state's vulnerability to large-scale workforce disruptions. The geographic and sectoral distribution of these layoffs reveals a state economy unevenly exposed to structural headwinds: manufacturing decline, retail contraction, transportation consolidation, and periodic shocks in healthcare and food service sectors.
The temporal pattern is particularly revealing. While layoffs occurred consistently from 2006 onwards, the year 2020 stands as an inflection point, accounting for 161 notices and 33,064 workers affected—more than 23 percent of all workers affected over the entire dataset period. This COVID-19 shock compressed years of normal labor market churn into a single year, particularly devastating hospitality, food service, and travel-related sectors. Yet the subsequent recovery has been incomplete and uneven. Even as notices decreased in 2021 and 2022, they rebounded in 2023 and 2024, suggesting that structural headwinds—not merely cyclical disruptions—are reshaping Missouri's economy.
The 996 notices split nearly evenly between plant closures (435) and layoffs (439), with 122 notices of unknown type. This near-parity between closures and layoffs suggests that Missouri is not simply experiencing workforce rightsizing; the state is witnessing the actual elimination of productive capacity, a more ominous signal for long-term employment prospects.
Manufacturing remains the single largest driver of WARN notices in Missouri, with 104 notices affecting 16,110 workers. This concentration reflects the state's historical economic foundation in industrial production, but it also exposes Missouri's vulnerability to the long-term secular decline of U.S. manufacturing. The notices span food processing (Tyson Foods, ConAgra), building products (Nordyne), and consumer goods manufacturing, indicating that the challenges are not isolated to a particular subsector but rather endemic to the state's industrial base.
Healthcare emerges as the second-largest driver of layoff activity, with 79 notices and 11,873 workers affected. This may seem counterintuitive given healthcare's reputation as a stable, growing sector. However, the healthcare layoffs likely reflect consolidation within hospital systems, closure of underperforming facilities, and the shift toward outpatient care models that require fewer beds and administrative staff. The notices under this category probably represent institutional restructuring rather than sector-wide decline, though the sheer volume—representing 8.4 percent of all workers affected—deserves attention from state policymakers.
Transportation sector layoffs total 65 notices and 10,856 workers, driven substantially by American Airlines (1,608 workers across 6 notices), First Student (954 workers across 6 notices), and XPO Logistics (370 workers across 4 notices). These notices reflect the 2020 aviation collapse and the ongoing consolidation within ground transportation and logistics. The sector's reliance on just a few large employers makes it particularly volatile—when American Airlines adjusts capacity or a major logistics firm restructures, thousands of Missouri workers feel the impact.
The Accommodation and Food Service sector, with 46 notices and 10,472 workers affected, tells a story dominated by 2020. Hotels and food service establishments were disproportionately affected by pandemic lockdowns and capacity restrictions. HMSHost (752 workers across 3 notices, primarily airport and travel plaza food service), Aramark (1,014 workers across 6 notices, institutional food service), and Sodexo (339 workers across 4 notices, also institutional food service) all appear in the top employer list. These companies provide contract food service to hospitals, universities, and corporate campuses—institutions that immediately curtailed operations in 2020.
Retail represents 26 notices and 3,208 workers, a sector in structural decline. Macy's appears twice in the data (combined, 1,865 workers across 8 notices), emblematic of the brick-and-mortar retail crisis driven by e-commerce substitution. Kmart (236 workers across 3 notices) filed notices during its final bankruptcy proceedings. The retail sector's persistent appearance on the layoff list reflects not temporary cyclical weakness but permanent loss of market share to online competitors and changing consumer preferences.
The Information and Technology sector, with 29 notices and 2,568 workers, includes Block, Inc. (formerly Square, 136 workers across 4 notices) and SunEdison (143 workers across 16 notices). SunEdison's presence is particularly notable—the company's spectacular collapse in 2015-2016, driven by overexpansion in solar energy equipment manufacturing and financial distress, generated 16 separate WARN notices across Missouri facilities, affecting just 143 workers total but illustrating how a single company's crisis can generate numerous administrative filings.
The geographic distribution of layoffs reveals a state economy heavily dependent on two metropolitan areas. St. Louis dominates with 164 notices and 24,532 workers affected—17.4 percent of all workers affected across the entire dataset. Kansas City follows with 154 notices and 18,844 workers, representing 13.4 percent. Together, these two metros account for approximately 31 percent of all layoff activity, making them disproportionately vulnerable to sectoral shocks.
The St. Louis concentration reflects the metro's traditional economic base in manufacturing, food processing, pharmaceuticals, and transportation. Hostess Brands/Interstate Brand Corporation, the leading WARN filer, is headquartered in St. Louis and filed 22 notices affecting 893 workers—primarily reflecting the company's operational restructuring and plant consolidations. The metro also houses significant Macy's, Nordyne, and Aramark operations, explaining its outsized layoff volume.
Kansas City's exposure is similarly concentrated. Major employers like American Airlines (a significant presence in the region), First Student, and various logistics and food service operations create vulnerability to transportation and hospitality sector shocks. The 2020 pandemic devastated Kansas City's airport and hospitality sectors particularly severely, driving the spike in notices that year.
Beyond these two metros, Springfield emerges as a secondary layoff hotspot with 38 notices and 6,094 workers affected—a notably high impact for a city of its size. This concentration suggests that Springfield may be vulnerable to layoffs in a particular industry or from one or two large employers. Fenton (17 notices, 6,141 workers) and Branson (13 notices, 1,477 workers) also show concentrated layoff activity, likely reflecting specific manufacturing facilities or hospitality operations.
The smaller cities surrounding St. Louis—Maryland Heights (25 notices, 1,619 workers), St. Charles (19 notices, 2,447 workers), Hazelwood (19 notices, 2,454 workers), Earth City (16 notices, 1,545 workers), and Chesterfield (14 notices, 1,500 workers)—form a ring of industrial and logistics hubs that collectively absorb significant layoff impacts. These satellite communities' economic fortunes are directly tied to St. Louis metro's health.
This geographic concentration creates policy challenges. Workers in smaller communities with limited alternative employment options face greater dislocation when major employers restructure. The data suggests that state workforce development resources should prioritize these concentrated regions while recognizing that broad-based economic development efforts alone cannot offset the impact of large facility closures.
Hostess Brands/Interstate Brand Corporation leads with 22 notices and 893 workers affected, reflecting its ongoing optimization of its bakery operations network. This company's repeated filings suggest continuous facility consolidation and production shifting rather than a single crisis event. Similarly, First Student (954 workers across 6 notices) and Aramark (1,014 workers across 6 notices) show multi-year restructuring patterns, indicating that these companies have undergone sustained business model changes requiring repeated workforce adjustments.
Tyson Foods, the poultry and beef processor, filed just 3 notices but affected 2,199 workers—the highest worker count per notice ratio among top employers. This reflects the concentrated nature of food processing facilities: a single plant closure can displace thousands. The Tyson Foods filings likely represent closure or major downsizing of specific processing plants, not diffuse reductions across many locations.
Macy's appears multiple times in the data (at least 8 notices combined, affecting 1,865 workers), exemplifying the retail sector's fundamental crisis. Each notice represents a store closure, not a temporary staffing reduction. The company's multiple filings across Missouri over several years demonstrate that retail consolidation is an ongoing process, not a one-time shock.
Large financial institutions—Bank of America (416 workers across 3 notices), Wells Fargo (404 workers across 3 notices)—appear in the data, reflecting banking sector consolidation and the shift toward automated, digital banking that requires fewer physical branches and back-office staff. AT&T (160 workers across 3 notices) similarly reflects telecom sector consolidation and the replacement of call center jobs with automated systems.
The SunEdison case is instructive. With 16 notices affecting just 143 workers total, the company's repeated filings over multiple years reveal a company in managed decline, gradually shuttering facilities and consolidating operations before eventual collapse. This pattern differs from catastrophic single-notice closures and suggests that some companies reduce their Missouri footprint gradually rather than abruptly.
The 2006-2019 period shows baseline WARN filing activity averaging roughly 40 notices annually affecting 4,000-5,000 workers, reflecting steady-state labor market churn. The 2008-2009 financial crisis produced a spike—70 notices affecting 14,658 workers in 2008, followed by 69 notices affecting 8,757 workers in 2009—indicating that the Great Recession's impact on Missouri was significant but not catastrophic compared to later shocks.
2012 stands out with 71 notices affecting 6,525 workers, the highest notice count in the pre-COVID period. This likely reflects delayed effects of the 2008 recession as companies finally executed restructuring plans they had deferred during the crisis response period.
The 2020 pandemic year is unmistakable in the data: 161 notices affecting 33,064 workers. This represents a nearly fourfold increase in workers affected compared to the previous year (32 notices, 3,095 workers in 2019). The 2020 spike was driven entirely by hospitality, food service, and travel-related layoffs as lockdowns and capacity restrictions ravaged these sectors.
Notably, the recovery proved incomplete. Filings declined in 2021 (22 notices, 4,089 workers) and 2022 (11 notices, 2,210 workers)—the lowest two years in the dataset—suggesting that by then, most pandemic-driven closures had already occurred and employers had completed their emergency restructuring. However, 2023 and 2024 saw renewed activity at pre-pandemic levels (38 notices and 49 notices respectively, affecting 6,692 and 5,238 workers), indicating that Missouri's labor market vulnerability persists.
The trajectory from 2020 onwards suggests that Missouri is not returning to 2019-level stability. Instead, the state appears to be settling into a baseline elevated from the pre-pandemic period, with roughly 40-50 notices annually affecting 4,000-6,000 workers. This is approximately 10 percent higher than the pre-2020 baseline, suggesting that permanent capacity has been lost and that structural vulnerabilities have intensified.
The split between layoffs (439 notices) and closures (435 notices) carries important implications. Layoffs, at least theoretically, indicate that businesses are reducing workforce in response to slack demand but expect to rehire when conditions improve. Closures indicate permanent loss of productive capacity and permanent severance of employer-employee relationships.
The near-perfect parity between these two categories suggests that Missouri is experiencing both cyclical weakness (driving temporary layoffs) and structural decline (driving permanent closures). Neither category is heavily dominant, indicating that the state's economy is neither simply contracting temporarily nor collapsing entirely, but rather undergoing a complex transformation involving both cyclical and structural components.
The 122 notices classified as "unknown" likely split between these two categories, but the ambiguity itself suggests that some filings lack clarity about whether the action is temporary or permanent—a situation that creates uncertainty for workers and communities unsure whether an action portends eventual rehiring or permanent job loss.
Missouri's economy has historically relied on manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, and financial services. The state's median household income has trended below the national average, and the state has experienced persistent challenges attracting high-wage professional services employment. The WARN data reflects this economic structure: manufacturing is the largest driver of layoffs, transportation/logistics is the second-largest, and these sectors collectively account for over 19 percent of all workers affected.
The state's manufacturing base is exposed to long-term secular decline in U.S. industrial production, automation that reduces per-unit labor requirements, and potential trade disruptions that could further stress Missouri's industrial employers. The transportation sector, particularly concentrated in logistics and airlines, is facing both cyclical volatility and structural change (e-commerce's impact on shipping patterns, drone delivery experimentation, airline consolidation).
Missouri's retail sector, once an economic engine, is in structural decline, as demonstrated by the multiple Macy's, Kmart, and other retail layoffs. The state's hospitality and food service sectors, heavily weighted toward mid-market establishments rather than destination attractions, proved particularly vulnerable to the pandemic but face persistent weak demand as consumer preferences shift.
Conversely, Missouri's healthcare sector, despite its layoff volume, remains a relatively stable employer providing both direct care jobs and administrative positions. The state's education sector, with only 12 notices and 1,736 workers affected, appears relatively insulated from the layoff pressures affecting private sector employment.
The data from 2025 and 2026 (albeit preliminary for 2026) suggest continued layoff activity at elevated levels, though the small number of 2026 notices likely reflects incomplete reporting. If the baseline holds at 40-50 notices annually affecting 4,000-6,000 workers, Missouri should expect roughly 4,000-6,000 workers to experience WARN-eligible separations each year going forward—a persistent drag on workforce stability.
Workers in Missouri should anticipate continued sectoral volatility in manufacturing, retail, and transportation. Manufacturing workers should expect ongoing automation and possible facility consolidation, suggesting that retraining in higher-value manufacturing roles (advanced manufacturing, industrial maintenance) or entirely different sectors (healthcare, skilled trades) may be necessary for long-term employment security. Retail workers should recognize that their sector faces permanent contraction and should prioritize skill acquisition in fields with stronger demand growth.
Policymakers should recognize that Missouri's geographic concentration of layoff risk in St. Louis and Kansas City metro areas creates both challenges and opportunities. Targeted workforce development resources in these metros could help workers transition to growing sectors, while state-level economic development efforts should focus on attracting employers in sectors less vulnerable to the structural headwinds affecting manufacturing and retail.
The near-parity between closures and layoffs suggests that Missouri needs both immediate worker assistance programs for those experiencing displacement and longer-term regional economic diversification strategies to reduce the state's exposure to cyclically and structurally vulnerable sectors. The data indicates that neither cyclical recovery nor time alone will restore the employment levels that existed before structural change took hold.
