WARN Act Layoffs in North Dakota

In-Depth Analysis: Layoffs in North Dakota

# Economic Analysis: North Dakota's Layoff Landscape

Executive Summary

North Dakota has experienced substantial workforce disruption over the past decade, with 99 WARN notices displacing 10,065 workers since 2015. This figure represents a significant economic shock for a state with a 2023 population of approximately 780,000, translating to roughly 1.3 percent of the state's total workforce affected by mass layoffs in this period. The trajectory reveals a state buffeted by cyclical industry contractions—particularly in energy and oilfield services—rather than a single catastrophic event. Two years stand out as particularly severe: 2020 saw 14 notices affecting 1,430 workers, capturing the pandemic's disruption to transportation, hospitality, and technology services, while 2016 registered 10 notices with 875 workers affected during the oil price collapse. The volatility in North Dakota's layoff patterns reflects the state's structural dependence on cyclical, capital-intensive industries that respond sharply to commodity price fluctuations and macroeconomic shocks.

The Energy Sector's Outsized Impact

The dominance of energy-related companies in North Dakota's layoff data is striking and economically revealing. Calfrac Well Services Corp alone accounts for 10 WARN notices and 728 affected workers—representing more than seven percent of the state's total layoff volume. Calfrac, a Canadian oilfield services firm, provides hydraulic fracturing and pressure pumping services, industries deeply sensitive to crude oil prices and drilling activity. The company's repeated notices between 2015 and the early 2020s reflect the sector's violent cyclicality: when West Texas crude collapsed from $107 per barrel in June 2014 to $26 in early 2016, companies like Calfrac responded with cascading workforce reductions.

Beyond Calfrac, the energy sector's footprint extends through MBI Energy Services (4 notices, 484 workers), Liberty Oilfield Services LLC (2 notices, 408 workers), Sanjel (2 notices, 296 workers), and Baker Hughes (2 notices, 234 workers). Combined, these firms represent approximately 1,622 workers, or roughly 16 percent of total WARN-reported layoffs. This concentration underscores a fundamental economic reality: North Dakota's oil and gas sector, while generating substantial tax revenue and employment, operates within commodity markets beyond the state's control. When global oil supply exceeds demand or when shale drilling economics deteriorate due to operational costs, North Dakota's energy workers face rapid, large-scale displacement.

The persistence of energy sector layoffs through 2022 and into 2023 suggests that the sector's recovery from the 2014-2016 collapse and the 2020 pandemic shock remains incomplete. Technological disruption within energy services compounds these cyclical pressures. Hydraulic fracturing and well completion technologies have become more capital-intensive and less labor-intensive, meaning that even when drilling activity recovers, employment gains may fail to match the losses from downturns.

Geographic Concentration and Regional Vulnerability

Layoff impacts are acutely concentrated in North Dakota's urban centers and energy-dependent regions. Fargo, the state's largest metropolitan area, dominates with 28 notices and 2,434 affected workers—representing 24 percent of the state's total WARN notices and 24 percent of affected workers. However, this concentration partly reflects Fargo's status as a regional hub for call centers, logistics, and white-collar services, not exclusively energy dependence.

More revealing is Williston's proportional vulnerability. With 16 notices and 1,692 affected workers from a regional population of roughly 20,000 to 30,000, Williston faces a far more acute disruption ratio than Fargo. Williston sits at the heart of the Bakken Shale, and its economy revolves around oil extraction and oilfield services. The concentration of Williston layoffs in notices from Calfrac, Liberty Oilfield Services, and other drilling-related firms demonstrates how single-industry dependence creates asymmetric economic vulnerability. A 20 percent decline in Bakken production capacity can translate to a 40 or 50 percent employment shock in Williston, given the sector's employment multiplier effects.

Bismarck (6 notices, 847 workers) and Minot (6 notices, 228 workers) show more diversified layoff sources but still reflect energy and manufacturing concentration. Beulah (4 notices, 964 workers), located in the lignite coal region of west-central North Dakota, recorded 964 layoffs primarily from coal-fired power plant operations and related utilities, reflecting the broader U.S. decline in coal-dependent electricity generation.

This geographic pattern carries significant policy implications. Urban centers like Fargo possess greater economic diversification and labor market depth, allowing displaced workers more realistic pathways to reemployment. Williston and Beulah lack such buffers, meaning layoffs there carry higher risks of long-term joblessness, outmigration, and reduced community tax bases.

Sectoral Drivers and Structural Shifts

Beyond energy, North Dakota's layoff patterns reveal disruption across multiple industries facing distinct structural headwinds. The Transportation sector registered 4 notices affecting 700 workers, driven largely by XPO Logistics (2 notices, 690 workers). XPO's layoffs likely reflect industry consolidation and automation in logistics—warehouse robotics, route optimization software, and autonomous vehicle development are reducing demand for human warehouse and transportation workers even as overall logistics activity grows.

Manufacturing (4 notices, 298 workers) captures companies like Benchmark Electronics Inc and Wells Concrete, sectors experiencing long-term automation-driven employment decline. Utilities (4 notices, 484 workers) principally reflects coal generation and transmission company reductions, driven by the national transition away from coal toward natural gas and renewables.

The Information & Technology sector's appearance (4 notices, 126 workers) signals something distinct from North Dakota's traditional industrial base. Companies like Atos IT Solutions & Services Inc (2 notices, 446 workers) suggest that even tech services—often considered growth sectors—are subject to sudden consolidation and offshoring. Atos, a European IT outsourcing giant, frequently adjusts its North American workforce in response to client wins and losses, illustrating how even white-collar employment in the state remains vulnerable to global corporate restructuring.

Healthcare appears as an anomaly, with Watsonville Community Hospital (2 notices, 1,340 workers) driving the sector's WARN filings. This massive single-hospital layoff in 2017 and 2018 likely reflects a facility closure or extraordinary operational restructuring rather than sector-wide decline—healthcare employment in North Dakota has grown nationally. The concentration of this layoff in a single institution masks the fact that most healthcare employment in the state remains stable.

The Major Employers: Volatility and Restructuring

The distribution of WARN notices among employers reveals a critical insight: North Dakota's employment base depends heavily on a small number of large firms operating in cyclical industries. Calfrac's ten notices dwarf any competitor. The next tier—companies like EGS Customer Care Inc (6 notices, 310 workers), MBI Energy Services (4 notices, 484 workers), and Cygnus Home Service, LLC (3 notices, 17 workers)—shows diverse business models but similar vulnerability to external shocks.

EGS Customer Care Inc, a call center operator, filed six notices affecting 310 workers across multiple sites. This pattern—repeated notices affecting smaller cohorts—suggests ongoing operational adjustments rather than a single catastrophic closure. Call centers represent quintessential footloose industries: low-skill, easily outsourced to lower-cost regions or offshore markets. EGS's repeated WARN filings likely reflect ongoing migration of customer service work away from North Dakota toward locations with lower wage costs.

MBI Energy Services, which filed 4 notices for 484 workers, operates in well testing and oilfield measurement services—highly specialized work but subject to the same commodity cycles as drilling services. Its notices clustered around 2015-2016 and again in 2020 align precisely with oil market downturns.

The prevalence of repeat filers—companies issuing multiple WARN notices across several years—indicates that North Dakota's economy features limited employment resilience. Rather than one-time restructurings after which companies stabilize, the data show ongoing, iterative workforce reductions as companies adapt to persistent market shifts.

Historical Trajectory: Cyclical Patterns Overlaid on Structural Decline

The year-by-year pattern in WARN notices reveals how North Dakota's economy responds to global commodity cycles and macroeconomic shocks. The 2015-2016 period captures the oil price collapse: 2015 recorded 7 notices (416 workers) followed by 2016's spike to 10 notices (875 workers) as energy companies fully absorbed the shock to their balance sheets and drilling budgets. The subsequent period (2017-2019) shows a sharp reduction in notices, suggesting partial recovery in energy markets and some stabilization in other sectors.

However, 2020 registered a dramatic resurgence: 14 notices affecting 1,430 workers. This spike reflects not only oil market disruption but the pandemic's impact on transportation, hospitality, and retail services. The years 2021 and 2022 appear conspicuously absent from the data (aside from 2 notices in 2022), suggesting either improved labor market conditions or a lag in WARN reporting. The recent period—2023-2025—shows only 10 notices combined (322 workers), indicating either genuine stabilization or potentially that employers are utilizing WARN reporting less consistently.

The absence of data from 2021 is notable and warrants interpretation with caution. WARN notices are filed by employers, and some firms may have undertaken workforce reductions through attrition, voluntary separations, or other mechanisms avoiding the WARN Act's 60-day notification requirement. Alternatively, 2021's strong labor market may have genuinely reduced mass layoff incidence.

North Dakota's Economic Context and Structural Position

Understanding North Dakota's layoff patterns requires situating them within the state's broader economic structure. North Dakota's per capita income ranks above the national average, and the state maintained one of the nation's lowest unemployment rates even during the 2020 pandemic. These positive indicators mask underlying economic concentration risks.

The state's economy rests on a foundation of energy extraction (oil, coal, natural gas), agricultural processing, and increasingly, value-added services (call centers, software development, business process outsourcing). The energy sector's contribution to state tax revenue exceeds its employment share, creating a fiscal dependency that magnifies the impact of commodity price collapses. When oil prices fall, not only do energy companies lay off workers, but state government revenues decline, subsequently reducing public sector employment and social services funding.

North Dakota's agricultural base, while substantial, has undergone decades of consolidation and mechanization, with employment in farming and food processing declining steadily. Hornbachers (2 notices, 196 workers) and Pizza Corner Inc (2 notices, 260 workers) represent downstream food service disruption, though these appear more linked to company-specific challenges than sector-wide collapse.

The state's labor force participation rate exceeds national averages, reflecting cultural factors and demographics—North Dakota's population is older than many states, yet participation among those employed remains robust. This demographic profile means that displaced workers, particularly older workers affected by energy sector collapses, face longer reemployment windows and less wage growth upon reemployment compared to workers in more diversified labor markets.

Implications and Forward Outlook

North Dakota's layoff landscape points toward several forward-looking imperatives for workers, businesses, and policymakers. First, the state's economic vulnerability to energy sector cycles remains acute. While recent years show fewer WARN notices, this reflects temporary market conditions rather than structural diversification. Any sustained decline in global oil demand—driven by electric vehicle adoption, renewable energy expansion, or macroeconomic recession—would generate rapid, large-scale layoffs concentrated in Williston and surrounding regions.

Second, the persistence of repeated WARN notices from individual companies suggests that ongoing restructuring, automation, and offshoring will continue displacing workers even in non-cyclical industries. Call centers, logistics firms, and IT services providers will continue adjusting North Dakota operations downward as technology and globalization favor alternative locations.

Third, geographic concentration creates unequal adjustment burdens. Fargo and Bismarck workers displaced by layoffs have realistic prospects for reemployment within their metropolitan areas. Williston and Beulah workers face far starker choices: accept lower-wage work outside their field, relocate, or exit the labor force. Policy interventions should prioritize workforce development, wage insurance, and relocation assistance in highly concentrated impact regions.

Fourth, the healthcare sector's apparent stability (despite the Watsonville outlier) and the growth of professional services in Fargo suggest that diversification toward education, healthcare, and advanced services offers the most promising avenue for reducing energy-sector dependency. Supporting this transition requires sustained investment in workforce development, education infrastructure, and business environment incentives for knowledge-work clusters.

The data from 2024-2025 offer modest optimism: only five notices affecting 198 workers across two years. However, this snapshot reflects current commodity prices and labor market conditions, both subject to rapid change. North Dakota's economic resilience ultimately depends less on the current layoff trajectory than on strategic diversification away from the boom-bust cycles that have defined the state's economy for the past century.