A layoff can be either a permanent termination of someone’s employment — usually for cost-saving reasons — or a temporary one because there’s not enough work to justify a full workforce. Tech company layoffs generally fall into the permanent category. 

A mass layoff is when a significant number of a company’s employees are cut in a short period of time, often as a result of economic conditions. 

We are following individual WARN records from government entities, rather than crowdsourced data. Most of these records indicate exact offices and employee counts affected at each office, rather than just a single overall number for the entire company. These records are often more exhaustive than the crowdsourced data. This means they reflect small layoffs, as well as layoffs from companies which may not be large enough to be announced in the press. The timeline for filing these notices can vary -- they may be made available before or after a pub