Introducing WarnBase: Making Workforce Transparency Accessible

In an unpredictable economy, information isn’t just power—it’s a safety net.

Every year, thousands of workers are affected by mass layoffs and plant closings. Under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, employers are often required to provide 60 days' notice before these events. While this data is technically public, it is often buried in fragmented state databases, obscure spreadsheets, and hard-to-parse PDFs.

Today, we’re changing that. We are thrilled to announce the launch of WarnBase.

The Problem with Public Data

If you’ve ever tried to track WARN notices across multiple states, you know the struggle. Each state has its own filing system, update frequency, and data format. For a job seeker, a journalist, or an economist, getting a clear picture of the labor market shouldn't feel like an archaeology project.

Powered by Stanford’s Big Local News

Transparency is at the heart of WarnBase, and that starts with where our data comes from.

WarnBase is powered by data from Big Local News, a program at Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative. Big Local News works to collect, clean, and share difficult-to-obtain government data that is vital to local accountability journalism.

By leveraging their rigorous data collection efforts and open-source scraping tools, WarnBase is able to provide a centralized, standardized view of WARN notices from across the country. We believe that by building on this academic and journalistic foundation, we can provide a more reliable and up-to-date resource for the public.

What is WarnBase?

WarnBase is a streamlined, searchable platform designed to make this centralized data useful. We’ve taken the raw information and built an interface that works for you:

• Searchable Database: Instantly look up companies, locations, or industries.
• Real-Time Insights: Stay informed on the latest filings as they are processed.
• User-First Design: A clean, fast interface that gets you the data you need without the clutter.

Why It Matters

Whether you are a professional looking for your next move, a recruiter identifying shifting talent pools, or a researcher analyzing economic trends, WarnBase is built for you. By making this data accessible, we hope to help people make more informed decisions about their careers and their communities.

Get Started

The platform is live and ready for you to explore. Head over to warnbase.fyi to try your first search.

We’re just getting started, and we’d love to hear your feedback as we continue to add new features and expand our coverage.