Why Washington's layoff numbers now jump every fall

Most of September came from orchards

Sort September's filings by employer and the pattern is plain. Farms, orchards and packing houses filed 12 of the 37 notices, and those 12 reported 9,068 workers, about 68% of the month. Gebbers Farms in Okanogan County filed the largest at 3,445, followed by Legendary Fruit Co at 1,220 and FirstFruits at 1,200.

That 68% is a floor. We count an employer as agricultural only when its name plainly says so: farms, orchards, ranches, fruit companies. Five more September filers are service companies, four of them in Yakima County, such as Pacific Ag Services and Sagemoor Group Management Services. They may employ farmworkers too, but their names do not settle it, so their 1,780 workers stay out of the count.

Nearly all of these notices list an effective date in mid to late November, when the apple harvest wraps up. They were filed about 60 days ahead, which is the notice period the law requires.

• Washington ESD WARN requirements
• Monthly WARN reports

Twenty years of rare fall filings, then a wave

From 2004 through 2024, the archive holds 10 agricultural notices filed between August and November, covering 1,324 workers in all. In the fall of 2025, farms and orchards filed 17 notices for 13,154 workers. The 2026 season has 14 so far, with 9,398 workers, and last year another 8 arrived in October.

Harvests did not suddenly get bigger in 2025. The law changed.

• Search the official ESD WARN database

Washington wrote its own WARN law

On July 27, 2025, Washington's own version of the WARN Act took effect (ESSB 5525, Chapter 277, Laws of 2025). It follows the federal law closely, with two differences that matter here.

First, it reaches smaller employers. The federal law applies to employers with 100 or more employees, and a layoff of fewer than 500 people must also affect a third of a site's workforce. Washington's applies at 50 employees, and any layoff of 50 or more in a 30-day period counts.

Second, it has no exception for seasonal work. Federal regulations exempt jobs that end with a project or a season, and they name agriculture outright: harvest work that recurs every year needs no federal notice if workers knew it was temporary. Washington's law keeps exceptions for a struggling company seeking capital, unforeseeable business circumstances, natural disasters and construction projects. Seasonal farm work is not among them.

Employers have read it that way. Manson Growers' October notice cites "Washington's new WARN Act" and describes the layoff as the end of its apple harvest.

The state law also asks for more in each notice. The names and addresses of affected employees go to ESD, which is why the public copies of these filings arrive with long black redaction bars where the roster used to be.

• ESSB 5525 in the Washington Legislature's bill record
• Federal WARN exemptions, 20 CFR 639.5
• Washington ESD WARN requirements

The same farms in the same weeks

Six of this year's 14 agricultural filers also filed in the fall of 2025, with nearly the same counts. Gebbers Farms reported 3,465 workers last October and 3,445 this September. FirstFruits reported 1,200 both times. Gilbert Orchards went from 599 to 518, and Cascade View Fruit & Cold Storage from 263 to 259.

Some of these crews come through the federal H-2A program for temporary farm work. Gebbers' notice, for example, describes H-2A contracts running from mid-February to late November. When the contract ends the job ends, and the employer now files a notice for it.

So a fall filing from an orchard usually marks a season ending on schedule. On its own it says little about whether the farm is shrinking, and the same employer filing again next fall would be the expected outcome.

• WARN employer directory
• Search the official ESD WARN database

How to read fall numbers from now on

Compare a fall month with the same month in 2025 or later. The rules were different before July 2025, so setting September 2026 against September 2024, when filings reported 13 workers, mostly measures the change in the law.

Separate the harvest from everything else. Take out the 12 agricultural filings and the five service companies that may also be agricultural, and 20 notices remain, covering 2,410 workers: eight card rooms closing, health systems, a gypsum plant and several tech employers. That is roughly in line with August's 2,193, so outside the harvest September was an ordinary month.

And keep in mind what a WARN notice records. It shows that an employer reported a planned layoff. It does not show why, whether workers will be hired back next season, or how many people end up out of work. Our monthly reports keep the evidence behind each total so you can check the arithmetic.

• Monthly WARN reports with saved evidence
• How the harvest shifts sector shares
• Washington ESD WARN requirements