WARN Act Layoffs in North Carolina

In-Depth Analysis: Layoffs in North Carolina

# Economic Analysis of Layoffs in North Carolina

Executive Summary

North Carolina has experienced 1,268 WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notices affecting 137,732 workers since 2012, representing one of the largest sustained labor market disruptions in the state's recent economic history. The data reveals a dramatic spike in 2020 with 317 notices and 29,597 workers affected—nearly 22 percent of all workers impacted over the entire 14-year period—driven by pandemic-related shutdowns and restructuring. However, rather than returning to pre-2020 baseline levels, the state has entered a new phase of elevated workforce reductions, with 2025 alone generating 130 notices affecting 10,910 workers, suggesting structural rather than cyclical forces are reshaping North Carolina's labor market. These layoffs are not evenly distributed; they concentrate in specific industries, metropolitan areas, and employer types, creating uneven economic pressure across the state's regions and workforce.

The composition of these reductions is telling: 667 notices represent traditional layoffs while 586 constitute permanent closures, indicating that North Carolina is not simply experiencing temporary workforce adjustments but witnessing the wholesale exit of operations and the elimination of permanent employment capacity. This distinction matters for policy response and worker outcomes, as closure-related job losses rarely generate replacement employment at equivalent wage levels.

Industry Analysis: Structural Shifts Beneath the Surface

Manufacturing, the traditional backbone of North Carolina's economy, dominates the layoff data with 117 notices affecting 13,809 workers—10 percent of all workers displaced statewide. However, this aggregate figure masks important sectoral variation. Daimler Trucks North America LLC alone accounts for 3,917 workers across ten separate notices, reflecting the consolidation and automation pressures in heavy equipment manufacturing. The company's multiple notices suggest not a single strategic shift but rather rolling reductions tied to production cycle adjustments and likely capital investment in automated systems that reduce direct labor requirements.

Furniture manufacturing, historically a signature North Carolina industry centered in High Point and surrounding regions, appears as a recurring culprit. Klaussner Furniture Industries Inc filed seven notices affecting 884 workers, and Delta Apparel, Inc generated five notices displacing 383 workers. These reductions reflect decades-long structural decline in American furniture manufacturing driven by overseas competition, particularly from Vietnam and Indonesia where labor costs remain a fraction of North Carolina wages. The persistence of these notices into 2025 indicates the industry has not stabilized; rather, it continues a slow contraction as remaining domestic capacity struggles to compete.

Transportation emerges as a second major source of workforce displacement with 55 notices and 10,249 affected workers. Yellow Corporation, the nation's largest trucking company, filed eight notices affecting 882 workers—a particularly significant figure given the company's industry dominance. UPS and Railcrew Xpress (RCX) contributed additional notices reflecting logistics restructuring. These reductions likely stem from automation in warehouse operations, route optimization algorithms, and the adoption of autonomous vehicle technologies in testing and pilot programs. The sector's growth in absolute employment has masked significant compositional change; fewer drivers may manage larger shipment volumes through improved logistics efficiency.

Accommodation & Food Services, the third-largest affected sector with 84 notices and 6,097 workers, tells a different story. Hostess Brands Inc filed 18 notices affecting 478 workers, and Bloomin' Brands, which operates casual dining establishments, generated four notices affecting 169 workers. The pandemic accelerated a pre-existing trend toward consolidation in casual dining, where lower-margin establishments have struggled against both fast-casual competitors and delivery-model disruption. These are not primarily automation-driven reductions but rather demand destruction and competitive displacement within the consumer services sector.

Healthcare, with 56 notices and 5,078 workers affected, represents a category worthy of closer examination. Carolina Eye Associates P.A. filed seven notices affecting 176 workers. Healthcare layoffs appear driven not by sector decline—healthcare employment nationally remains robust—but rather by provider consolidation, practice mergers, and administrative restructuring following industry M&A activity. These represent localized disruptions within a growing sector rather than structural sector contraction.

Finance & Insurance and Information & Technology sectors each generated 25 notices affecting roughly 2,500 workers. PNC Financial Services Group and Bank of America contributed 10 combined notices affecting 1,457 workers, reflecting post-pandemic branch rationalization and the accelerating shift toward digital banking that reduces demand for teller and customer service staff. RTI International filed four notices affecting 2,001 workers, suggesting research-focused employment disruption tied to grant cycles, changing research funding priorities, or organizational restructuring.

The industrial composition reveals that North Carolina's layoffs are driven less by generalized economic contraction than by sector-specific structural transformations: automation in logistics and manufacturing, consolidation in healthcare and finance, competitive displacement in food service and hospitality, and the continuing offshore migration of lower-value manufacturing work.

Geographic Concentration and Regional Inequality

Charlotte dominates the geographic distribution with 92 notices affecting 11,242 workers—more than 8 percent of all state displacement concentrated in a single metropolitan area. This reflects Charlotte's role as North Carolina's financial hub and headquarters for major regional employers. The concentration of banking, logistics, and corporate services in Charlotte means that industry-level disruptions in these sectors translate directly into city-level employment shocks.

Durham and Raleigh, the Research Triangle's two largest cities, together account for 60 notices affecting 6,698 workers. Durham experienced 30 notices affecting 3,720 workers, reflecting not baseline disruption but the clustering of healthcare and research institutions in that city. Raleigh, with 30 notices affecting 2,978 workers, shows similar research-sector concentration. These figures suggest that the Research Triangle, while known for innovation and growth, is not insulated from workforce reductions; rather, disruptions occur within expanding sectors as institutions restructure operations and consolidate functions.

Greensboro, High Point, and Asheboro collectively experienced 51 notices affecting 6,593 workers, representing the Piedmont region's furniture and textile heritage under continued pressure. High Point alone recorded 14 notices affecting 1,966 workers, underscoring the region's dependence on legacy industries undergoing structural decline. These cities face a particular challenge: their historical economic identity is tied to manufacturing sectors experiencing secular decline, and diversification efforts remain incomplete.

Asheville, with 11 notices affecting 1,829 workers, reveals that even the state's tourism-oriented western region experiences significant disruptions, likely tied to accommodation and food service consolidation. Fayetteville, with 17 notices affecting 1,820 workers, shows military and defense-adjacent employment experiencing periodic adjustments.

The geographic data illuminates an important dynamic: layoffs are not uniformly distributed across economically similar regions. Charlotte's disruptions, while numerically large, occur within a diversified economy with alternative employment. Greensboro and High Point's disruptions, smaller in absolute numbers, represent larger proportional losses in economies heavily dependent on declining industries. This geographic concentration in legacy manufacturing regions creates uneven adjustment costs and suggests that state-level policy responses must account for regional variation in adjustment capacity.

Major Employers and Company-Level Patterns

The top employers filing WARN notices reveal distinct corporate restructuring patterns. East Coast Migrant Head Start Project leads with 24 notices affecting 516 workers, suggesting repeated funding adjustments and program restructuring rather than core business model disruption—typical for government-contracting service organizations sensitive to appropriation volatility.

Hostess Brands Inc, with 18 notices affecting 478 workers, represents consolidation within food manufacturing. As a company attempting to revive legacy snack brands through efficiency improvements, the multiple notices suggest rolling facility consolidations and supply chain optimization reducing direct labor requirements.

Yellow Corporation and Enterprise Holdings, each with eight notices, illustrate logistics sector dynamics. Yellow Corporation notices reflect company-wide restructuring (the company ultimately filed bankruptcy in 2023), while Enterprise Holdings notices explicitly marked "COVID19" suggest pandemic-driven fleet adjustments and branch closures that were never fully reversed as consumer travel patterns did not fully recover to pre-pandemic levels for rental car demand.

Daimler Trucks North America LLC represents a particularly important case study: the company appears in the data twice (once as "Daimler Trucks North America LLC" with 6 notices and 2,771 workers, and once as "Daimler Truck North America LLC" with 4 notices and 1,146 workers), totaling 10 notices affecting 3,917 workers. For a single company to affect this many workers across multiple notices suggests not a one-time restructuring but an ongoing, multi-year transformation. The truck manufacturing industry is undergoing simultaneous pressures: electrification of powertrains requiring different production processes, consolidation of supply chains, and the shift from traditional heavy truck production toward electric and autonomous platforms. Daimler's notices likely reflect facility consolidations, production line optimization, and workforce reallocation from traditional manufacturing toward engineering roles tied to electrification technologies.

Walmart and Lowe's Companies Inc, retail giants with 5 and 4 notices respectively affecting 1,364 and 725 workers, illustrate the retail sector's ongoing transformation. These are not closures driven by bankruptcy or exit from the state but rather supply chain restructuring, distribution center automation, and store format rationalization. The notices may reflect conversion of high-labor formats to lower-labor models or reallocation of corporate functions.

The company-level data suggests that most WARN notices do not represent sudden crises but rather planned workforce adjustments tied to capital investment, production restructuring, or strategic repositioning. Many of the largest employers—Daimler, Walmart, Lowe's, Bank of America—are not struggling firms but rather mature enterprises optimizing operations through automation and consolidation.

Historical Trajectory: From Cyclical to Structural

The year-by-year pattern reveals critical inflection points. From 2012 through 2019, North Carolina experienced 518 notices affecting 57,518 workers—approximately 7.4 percent of eventual total displacement spread across eight years, suggesting a relatively stable baseline of structural adjustment typical of a mature economy with continuous sectoral shifts.

The pandemic created a dramatic interruption: 2020 generated 317 notices affecting 29,597 workers—57 percent of the annual rate in a single year. This was not a normal economic adjustment but rather an abrupt, widespread shutdown and restructuring. Critically, the state did not revert to 2019 patterns after recovery. From 2021 through 2024, the state averaged 75 notices annually affecting roughly 6,600 workers—notably higher than the 2012-2019 baseline. The 2025 figure of 130 notices affecting 10,910 workers represents the highest annual volume since 2020, indicating that post-pandemic layoff rates have not declined but rather normalized at an elevated level.

This trajectory contradicts simple recession or cyclical stories. The 2012-2019 period included the height of the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis; 2020 was obviously catastrophic; but 2021-2025 shows persistently elevated disruption despite overall economic growth, unemployment below historical averages, and a labor market described as tight. This pattern suggests that layoffs and job displacement are now structural features of North Carolina's economy rather than cyclical responses to demand fluctuations.

Economic Context: North Carolina's Labor Market Position

North Carolina's economy depends significantly on the sectors experiencing greatest disruption. The state has historically derived competitive advantage from low labor costs and pro-business regulation, attracting manufacturing investment. This competitive position is eroding as automation reduces the labor cost advantage of domestic manufacturing, and as overseas production in lower-wage countries continues to offer structural cost advantages that North Carolina cannot match.

The state's unemployment rate has remained below the national average throughout the study period, yet the persistent WARN notices suggest that this aggregate statistic masks significant churn and sectoral disruption. Workers leaving manufacturing or furniture production may eventually find service-sector employment, but typically at lower wages, fewer benefits, and less stable conditions than the jobs displaced.

North Carolina's Research Triangle region represents the state's effort to build a higher-skill economy less dependent on legacy manufacturing. Yet the data shows that healthcare and research sectors also experience disruptions tied to consolidation and restructuring. Growth in these sectors has not fully offset declining employment in traditional industries; it has merely shifted the composition of disruption toward more educated workforces and higher-skill positions.

The state's geographic concentration of layoffs in Charlotte, the Research Triangle, and legacy industrial regions reflects North Carolina's economy as a collection of distinct regional economies rather than an integrated whole. Metropolitan areas with diverse economic bases absorb disruptions; regions dependent on single industries face cumulative adjustment pressures.

Outlook and Implications

The 2025 data point toward continued elevated disruption in North Carolina's labor market. The 130 notices affecting 10,910 workers represent the first full-year projection in the 2025-2026 period, and the provisional 2026 data (18 notices) likely reflects incomplete reporting rather than sharp decline.

Workers and job seekers should expect that layoff announcements will remain a regular feature of North Carolina's economic landscape, concentrated in manufacturing, logistics, and finance sectors where automation and consolidation continue to reshape labor demand. The distinction between layoffs and closures in the data—586 closures versus 667 layoffs—suggests that a significant share of job losses are permanent rather than temporary, reducing the probability of rapid re-employment at equivalent positions.

Policymakers should attend to regional variation in adjustment capacity. Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham have sufficiently diversified economies to absorb disruptions through inter-industry labor movement. Greensboro, High Point, and surrounding communities dependent on furniture and legacy manufacturing require explicit economic development attention and workforce transition support. The small number of construction notices (2) and professional services notices (4) suggests that new industrial expansion is not offsetting job losses from existing operations—a concerning signal for net employment growth.

The absence of significant new capacity creation in the WARN data is notable. The notices describe workforce adjustments at existing enterprises, not announcements of new facilities or expansions. This suggests that North Carolina's economic growth, where it is occurring, is not generating proportional new employment opportunities to offset disruptions in existing industries.

The trajectory from 2012 through 2026 indicates that North Carolina has transitioned from a labor market experiencing normal structural adjustment to one experiencing sustained, elevated disruption reflecting fundamental shifts in production technology, capital location decisions, and industry structure. The state's economy is not in crisis—unemployment remains low and aggregate output continues to grow—but significant portions of its workforce are experiencing material disruption tied to these deep structural changes. The policy challenge lies in accelerating adjustment support for displaced workers while simultaneously building new economic capacity in sectors less vulnerable to the technological and competitive forces reshaping traditional North Carolina industries.