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10.11.23
Welcome to the October 2023 edition of NC Economy Watch: an update on what’s happening in the North Carolina economy and what it means for you, brought to you by the Labor & Economic Analysis Division (LEAD) of the NC Department of Commerce.
In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we look at layoff activity in North Carolina. Recent plant closures have rocked local communities and dominated headlines across our state. While these mass layoffs might reflect weakness in parts of the manufacturing sector, they have had only a limited impact on statewide employment statistics and, so far, they do not appear to be signaling a recession.
Despite Recent Plant Closures, Layoffs Remain Relatively Uncommon
On the morning of August 26, 2023, hundreds of furniture workers at Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams learned that their jobs had been abruptly terminated. This shocking news came on the heels of layoff announcements from Klaussner Furniture earlier in August and the Canton paper mill in March.
Plant closures can disrupt the lives of workers and destabilize the communities where they live. Mass layoffs, if sufficient in number, may also portend a downturn in the broader economy. We often learn of these layoffs from Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, which are widely covered in the news media.
WARN notices are typically issued well before economic numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics are released and, in theory, they could be used as a leading indicator of the widespread job losses that accompany a recession. In practice, while WARN notices play an important role in providing workers and communities advanced notification of impending layoffs at individual worksites, they are of limited value as a signal of an approaching recession or as a measure of economic conditions overall.
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