How we report layoffs

The Metaintro news desk reports layoffs, permanent store and site closures, return-to-office mandates and large hiring announcements. Its stories feed the Layoffs Tracker, so the rules on this page cover both the stories and the data.

We report what employers, filings and other news outlets have made public. We leave out rumors, plans under consideration, predictions, denials, temporary closures, market roundups, opinion, and stories that name no employer. The tracker methodology has the full counting rules, field by field.

A story runs only when it rests on at least one of these:

• The employer's own statement: a press release, a memo to staff, or its newsroom or investor pages
• A regulatory filing, such as an SEC 8-K
• A state WARN notice
• Reporting by a reputable news outlet

When a filing, a WARN notice or the employer's release states the figure, that is the source we cite for it, and news coverage never overrides the employer's own number or wording. Every fact about the employer in a story links to the page it came from, and the words of each link are copied from that page. Text in quotation marks is copied word for word. We do not write “sources say”, “reportedly” or “people familiar”.

When the employer has not announced, confirmed or filed the cuts, we publish only after two independent news outlets each report that they are happening. Independent means two different news organizations, on different websites, each with its own reporting. Copies of one wire or syndicated story count as one outlet. One outlet's report is not enough on its own, so we wait for a second publisher or the employer.

These stories and their tracker rows carry the Reported label. The headline says the cuts are reported, and the first paragraph names and links both outlets and says the employer has not confirmed. A number appears only when both outlets state the same one. When the employer confirms, we remove the label and update the same story and row rather than adding a new one.

For each story the desk fetches up to three news articles and up to two primary sources. Before publishing, code checks the draft against those pages:

• Every number, quotation, name and the announcement date appears in a source.
• The words of every source link appear on the page it links.
• On a confirmed story, the passage that carries the figure shows the employer announced, confirmed or filed it. No quoted passage may describe a rumor, a plan under consideration or a denial.
• The announcement was made public in the last 14 days.

A draft that fails gets one repair attempt and is otherwise dropped. Later reports about the same company and the same kind of action within 14 days, with no conflicting job count, are added to the existing row as more coverage instead of being counted twice.

An AI model drafts each story from the pages the desk fetched for it, and is told never to add a fact, number, name, date or quote that is not in them. Automated checks, not a person, decide what is published: a draft goes out only if it passes every check above.

The desk is built for speed. A story is published within minutes of passing its checks, and no editor reads it first. When a mistake gets through, we fix it and log it on our corrections page.

AI also reads each published story to fill in its tracker row: the company, the type of action, the date, the jobs figure and the places named. The jobs figure must be stated in the story, never estimated.

• The jobs figure is the number of jobs cut exactly as the employer or a source states it. “About 1,200 roles” is recorded as 1,200.
• When a source gives a range, such as 2,700 to 3,000 jobs, the tracker records the low end and the row's summary gives the range.
• We never estimate, round, add figures together or turn a percentage into a number. People “affected” or offered a buyout are not counted as cuts unless the employer says that many jobs are going.
• A dash in the tracker means we have no number we can stand behind: no source stated one, or on a Reported row the outlets did not agree. It never means zero.

Totals add up stated numbers only, so every total is a floor.

WARN notices come from the official lists that state labor agencies publish. A filing for 100 or more workers becomes its own tracker row, labeled WARN filing and linked to the state's notice, when no tracked announcement covers it. A filing that matches an announcement is shown on that announcement instead.

Workers in WARN-only rows are totaled separately and never added to announced jobs, because a notice and an announcement can describe the same layoff. Every filing of any size is on WARN notices by state, with each state's source.

A company's plan to add at least 500 jobs is tracked as a Hiring row. The number is the jobs to be added, exactly as stated, and the same sourcing and Reported rules apply.

Hiring is counted separately. It is never added to or subtracted from jobs affected, layoff totals or charts. Routine job postings, counts of open roles, job fairs and lists of companies that are hiring are not hiring announcements. The tracker's hiring panels count job postings in Metaintro's job index, which the methodology explains.

When we get something wrong, we fix the story at the same address so links and citations keep working, and add a dated note at the end: “Correction (date): An earlier version of this article said …”, followed by the correct fact and its source. Tracker rows are corrected in place, and the downloads carry the corrected figures.

Every correction note is listed on our corrections page, newest first.

To report an error, email hello@metaintro.com or use our contact page. Include the link, what is wrong, and a source, ideally the employer's own statement or filing.

Metaintro News is published by Metaintro, Inc., which builds AI job search and career tools. Our layoffs stories link to free resources for affected workers and to Metaintro's job tools. The rules on this page apply to every story either way.

Metaintro's founder and editor is accountable for these rules and for every correction. That means setting the rules the checks enforce and fixing what they miss, not approving each story before it runs.

Questions about this policy go to hello@metaintro.com.