Layoffs Tracker methodology and corrections

An event is one employer's announcement that it is cutting jobs, permanently closing stores, plants, offices or other sites, or ordering staff back to the office. It counts only when the employer announced, confirmed, filed or notified it: a press release, a statement or memo to staff, an SEC filing, or a state WARN notice.

We leave out:

• Reports that cite unnamed people or people familiar with the matter
• Plans under consideration, rumors, predictions and denials
• Temporary closures, such as remodels, holidays or weather
• Market roundups, statistics, opinion, and stories that name no employer

Each row is one announcement. A later report about the same company and the same kind of action within 14 days, with no conflicting job count, is added to the existing row as more coverage instead of becoming a second row.

Layoff

A company announces job cuts. Jobs affected is recorded only when a source states a number.

Store closure

A company announces it is closing stores or other locations. The number of stores, and of jobs, is recorded only when a source states it.

Return to office

A company sets an in-office attendance mandate. Jobs affected is included in the reported totals only when a source states a number.

The jobs figure on a row is the number of jobs cut or positions eliminated, exactly as the employer or a source states it. “About 1,200 roles” is recorded as 1,200. The tracker shows it in the Jobs affected column.

• We never estimate a number, round it, add figures together or convert a percentage. A cut announced only as a share of staff has no number.
• A count of people “affected”, “impacted” or “reorganized” is not shown as a cut unless the employer says that many jobs are going. Neither is a count of people eligible for or offered a buyout, a total workforce, or hires.
• The number must appear in digits in our coverage and in the row's summary. When it does not, the row shows “Not stated”, which means no number was disclosed, not that no jobs were cut.
• Stores closed follows the same rules and is recorded only for store closures.

Totals are the plain sum of stated numbers. Announcements without one are left out of the sum rather than counted as zero, so every total is a floor.

The Metaintro news desk reads English-language news searches, the layoffs feeds of TechCrunch and GeekWire, HR Dive, Retail Dive and Manufacturing Dive, and SEC 8-K filings that report Item 2.05 (exit or disposal costs). For each story it fetches up to three news articles and up to two primary sources: SEC filings, newswire releases, state WARN notices, and the employer's own newsroom or investor pages.

SEC filings, WARN notices and employer releases are preferred over news coverage. When a primary source states the figure, that source is the one cited for it, and news coverage never overrides the employer's own number or wording.

Before a post is published, code checks it against the fetched pages. The text of every source link must appear word for word on the page it links. Every number, quotation, name and the announcement date must appear in a source, and the passage that carries the figure must not read as a rumor. A post that fails gets one repair attempt and is otherwise dropped.

A row links our coverage of the event, and links its primary source only when that coverage cites it, so some rows link only to Metaintro coverage.

A row's date is the day the employer or a filing first made the action public, not the day the cuts or closures take effect. Dates are calendar days in UTC. When no source states the announcement date, the date is the day the report of it was published. The desk writes up only announcements made in the last 14 days.

Every employer has a tracker page at /layoffs/{company} with all of its rows. A row also links to the employer's Metaintro company profile only when all of these hold:

• The employer's own website domain belongs to exactly one company in our data.
• That company's name shares a distinctive word with the employer's name. Generic words such as “global” or “bank” do not count.
• That company's profile is public.

Otherwise the row has no profile link: we would rather show none than the wrong company. An existing link is never overwritten automatically.

The news desk runs every day at 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. New York time, reading headlines from the previous 48 hours. It publishes at most 6 posts a run and 12 a day.

A sync runs every 3 hours, at 40 minutes past the hour (UTC), and turns newly published layoffs coverage into tracker rows. A new post usually reaches the tracker and the downloads within three hours.

• Totals are a floor. Announcements that state no number add nothing to them.
• Coverage depends on the sources above. Announcements they do not report, often from smaller or non-US employers, are missed.
• On busy days the desk's caps can delay an announcement or leave it out.
• WARN notices are not added as rows on their own. State filings are listed separately on WARN notices by state.
• A figure is the employer's announced total and can include jobs outside the US.
• Rows do not record an industry, so there is no sector breakdown.
• Two rounds by the same company of the same kind within 14 days can be merged into one row.

The tracker, its company pages and the CSV and JSON downloads are free to reuse. Credit “Metaintro Layoffs Tracker” and link to https://www.metaintro.com/layoffs.

Add the date you read the figures, since rows are added and corrected over time. To cite one announcement, link its row on the company page, /layoffs/{company}#event-{id}. Each row's id and company page URL are in the downloads.

Email hello@metaintro.com with “Layoffs Tracker correction” in the subject, or use our contact page. Include the row or company page link, what is wrong, and a source, ideally the employer's own statement or filing.

Corrected posts and rows are fixed in place, at the same address, so existing links and citations keep working. A corrected row moves the hub's “Tracker updated” date, and the downloads carry the corrected figures.