WARN Act Layoff Tracking & Public Data Platform
A free public platform aggregating 80,000+ WARN Act layoff notices across all 50 US states — with a searchable, filterable public interface, automated CSV alert subscriptions by state and frequency, and a full admin backend for bulk data management, sponsorships, and analytics.
Client
WhatLayoff
Product
Public Data Platform & Admin System
Service
Product Engineering
Engagement
End-to-End Build
Client Overview
WhatLayoff is a free public resource that aggregates WARN Act filings from state workforce agencies across all 50 US states into a single searchable database. It serves workers, journalists, and researchers who need to track mass layoffs and plant closures — information that is legally public but scattered across dozens of separate state agency websites with no centralised access.
WARN Act notices were publicly available but fragmented — each state maintains its own filing system, format, and update cadence. There was no single place to search, filter, or analyse layoff data across states, companies, or industries. Researchers and journalists had to manually visit each state's website, and workers had no way to subscribe to alerts for layoffs happening in their area.
Build a two-sided platform: a fully public, searchable WARN Act database covering all 50 states — with per-state, per-company, and per-notice pages, chart and list views, and an automated alert subscription system — backed by a comprehensive admin panel for bulk data ingestion, sponsorship management, blog publishing, and analytics.
Problem & Challenges
Business Problems
- WARN Act data was scattered across 50 separate state agency websites with no unified access point for researchers, journalists, or workers
- No way for users to subscribe to layoff alerts for specific states — relevant notices had to be discovered manually
- Bulk importing thousands of state filings with no validation layer led to duplicate and incorrect records entering any existing system
- No mechanism for companies or organisations to sponsor state pages to fund the platform
- State-level layoff trend data existed nowhere in a browsable, chartable format
Technical Challenges
- Handling bulk CSV imports for 80,000+ records across 50 states with a pre-approval validation layer that surfaces duplicates and malformed data before ingestion
- Building an automated midnight cron job that checks each subscriber's state and frequency preference (daily, weekly, monthly) and sends a CSV of new notices to the right users at the right time
- Designing paginated, filterable public pages for notices, states, and companies that remain performant at scale with a large PostgreSQL dataset
- Building a sponsorship assignment system that enforces one active sponsor per state while allowing bulk assignment of one sponsor across multiple states simultaneously
- Supporting a dual view mode — list view and chart view — on the public notices pages using Recharts for data visualisation
Objectives & Success Criteria
Our Objectives
Success Criteria
Public WARN Notices Database
Build a fully public, paginated, filterable listing of all WARN notices across 50 states — searchable by state, company, industry, and date with chart and list view modes.
Success Criteria
50 States Covered
All US states represented in the database with filterable, browsable notice data.
State & Company Pages
Generate dedicated pages for each state and each company showing all related notices, with full pagination and filtering.
Bulk Import with Zero Bad Data
CSV imports pass through a validation layer — duplicates and malformed records are flagged before any data enters the system.
Individual Notice Detail Page
Show complete WARN notice details on a dedicated page for each filing.
Automated Alerts
Cron job correctly identifies subscribers by state and frequency every midnight and delivers CSV alerts without manual intervention.
Alert Subscription System
Let public users subscribe to layoff alerts for specific states with a chosen frequency (daily, weekly, monthly) — automatically emailed as a CSV by a midnight cron job.
Sponsor Integrity
System enforces one active sponsor per state at all times, with full admin control over assignment.
Admin Data Management
Build a full admin backend for adding individual records, bulk CSV import with validation, bulk CSV export, and upload history per state.
Sponsorship Management
Allow admin to assign sponsors to states, enforce one active sponsor per state, and support bulk assignment across multiple states.
Blog & Insights
Admin-managed blog for publishing WARN Act insights and analysis, with a public listing and detail page.
Analytics Dashboard
Admin dashboard showing total states, total notices, and daily trend data across the platform.
Our Solution
We built WhatLayoff as a Next.js platform on Supabase and PostgreSQL, deployed on Vercel. The public side delivers a rich WARN Act browsing experience across multiple entry points: an all-notices listing with pagination, filtering, and a toggle between list view and Recharts-powered chart view; a states index with individual state pages; company-specific pages aggregating all notices for that employer; and individual notice detail pages. Users can subscribe to layoff alerts for any state, choosing a delivery frequency of daily, weekly, or monthly. A midnight cron job runs against the subscription table, checks each user's state and frequency, generates a CSV of new notices for their subscribed state, and dispatches it by email — fully automated with no admin involvement. The admin panel gives the WhatLayoff team complete control over data: individual record creation, bulk CSV import with a pre-approval validation step that shows duplicate counts and error summaries before committing, CSV export per state, and full upload history. Sponsorships are managed from a dedicated admin section — the team can view sponsor requests submitted through the public form, assign a company to one or more states, and the platform enforces one active sponsor per state at all times. Blog posts and insights are created and published from the admin panel using Tiptap, and an analytics dashboard gives the team a live view of platform-wide data volume and daily activity.
Public Notices Listing
Paginated, filterable all-notices page with toggle between list view and Recharts chart view — filterable by state, company, industry, and date.
State Pages
Dedicated page per US state listing all WARN notices filed in that state, with pagination and filtering. States index provides a browsable entry point.
Company Pages
Per-company pages aggregating all WARN notices filed by that employer across any state.
Notice Detail Page
Full detail view for each individual WARN notice filing.
Alert Subscription System
Public subscribe form captures email and state selection with frequency preference (daily, weekly, monthly). Midnight cron job auto-generates and emails a CSV of new notices per subscribed state.
Bulk CSV Import with Validation
Admin uploads a CSV for any state; the system analyses the file, surfaces duplicates and malformed records with a full summary, and only ingests data after admin approval.
CSV Export & Upload History
Admin can export all notices for any state as a CSV and view a full history of past uploads — records added, errors flagged, and timestamps.
Sponsorship Management
Admin section for reviewing sponsor requests, assigning companies to states (one sponsor per state enforced), and bulk-assigning a sponsor across multiple states.
Blog / Insights CMS
Tiptap-powered blog editor in the admin panel for creating and publishing WARN Act insights, with a public listing and detail page.
Admin Analytics Dashboard
Live overview of total states, total notices in the system, and daily trend data across the platform.
Implementation & Delivery
Scope of Work
The engagement covered the full platform from scratch — public UI, admin backend, cron-based alert system, CSV processing pipeline, and Vercel deployment with Supabase as the managed PostgreSQL backend. PapaParse handles all CSV parsing on both import and export, with validation logic run server-side before any records touch the database.
- Public notices listing (paginated, filterable, list + chart view)
- State index page + individual state detail pages
- Company pages (per-employer notice aggregation)
- Individual WARN notice detail pages
- Alert subscription form (state + frequency selection)
- Midnight cron job: subscription check → CSV generation → email delivery
- Admin: individual record creation per state
- Admin: bulk CSV import with pre-approval validation (duplicates + error summary)
- Admin: CSV export per state + upload history
- Admin: sponsorship management (request review, state assignment, bulk assign)
- Public sponsor request form
- Admin: blog / insights CMS (Tiptap)
- Public blog listing + individual post pages
- Admin analytics dashboard
- Vercel deployment + Supabase setup
Validated Bulk Import
No WARN notice data enters the database without passing through the validation layer. Admins see a full summary of duplicates and errors before approving any upload — keeping 80,000+ records clean.
Automated Alert Cron
The midnight cron job checks every active subscription against its state and frequency, generates a state-specific CSV, and delivers it by email — completely hands-off after initial setup.
Dual View Mode
The public notices listing toggles between a traditional list view and a Recharts-powered chart view, giving journalists and researchers a visual layer on top of the raw data.
Sponsor Integrity Enforcement
The system enforces one active sponsor per state at all times, with bulk assignment supported for efficiency — giving the WhatLayoff team full commercial control without risk of data conflicts.
Technology Stack
Next.js
React
TypeScript
Tailwind CSS
Supabase
PostgreSQL
PapaParse
Recharts
Tiptap
Vercel AnalyticsVercelResults & Impact
WhatLayoff now serves as a centralised, searchable database of WARN Act notices covering all 50 US states. With 80,000+ notices ingested, a growing subscriber base receiving automated state-specific alerts, and a fully operational admin backend, the platform delivers public access to labour market data that was previously fragmented across dozens of state agency websites.
80,000+
WARN Notices in System
All 50
US States Covered
500+
Alert Subscribers
Daily / Weekly / Monthly
Alert Frequencies
Evolution & Long-Term Value
The platform is built to grow with the data. New states, companies, and notice types are added through the admin panel without code changes. The alert subscription system scales to any volume of subscribers, and the validated bulk import pipeline can handle large state-level CSV uploads as filing volumes increase. Future iterations could include API access for researchers, deeper industry-level analytics, and expanded mini-WARN state law coverage.