Laid off from DAI Global.

What DAI Global layoffs have meant for employees

If one of DAI's February 2025 notices to Maryland covered your job, Maryland's 2025 WARN log recorded that layoff as temporary, and DAI's spokesperson described the workers it notified that month as furloughed, according to Capital News Service. The three DAI notices in our WARN tracker share one address, 7600 Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, which DAI's court filing gives as its headquarters. The only one Maryland typed with no recall came in June. Counting the February notices as permanent job losses would go further than either the state's log or the company's spokesperson went. How many furloughed workers DAI called back before then isn't on record.

The furloughs weren't the only cost to staff. Some employees had already begun leaving DAI's permanent employ, the court filing says, and the furloughs ran through project teams too. On the Africa Trade and Investment project alone, 18 U.S.-based staff were furloughed, and on its six Ukraine projects more than half of the U.S. support team was. Executive vice president Zan Northrip signed that statement on February 10, 2025, after stop-work orders had been arriving since January 24. If you're weighing a job offer from DAI, it's worth knowing that the filing says DAI retracted numerous signed offers of employment in the ten days before then, after USAID's payments stopped.

The same filings describe a company short of cash. Before the President's executive order, USAID paid most DAI invoices within 10 to 15 days. By February 10, 2025, invoices worth more than $120 million for work through January 24 were unpaid, DAI had received nothing from USAID since the order, and the declaration said the freeze posed a critical threat to DAI's ability to continue operating. In later court filings reported by Bloomberg Law, DAI, one of the plaintiffs, said it had tapped out a $75 million working capital facility, that four of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe were unwilling to extend more, and that it had gone to a non-bank lender that specializes in distressed situations. It also said it could face lawsuits if forced to suspend as many as 4,000 more overseas staff without pay. Those last statements are DAI's court filings as Bloomberg Law reported them, made while the company was asking a court to lift the freeze.

Because DAI was entirely employee owned, much of it through a U.S. employee stock ownership plan, the declaration said USAID's implementation of the President's executive order had put the retirement savings of more than 600 American employees in jeopardy. If you hold DAI shares through that plan and your job has ended, the payout timing federal law allows is worth having in hand before you count on that money. Section 409(o) of the tax code, which Section 4975 makes a requirement of every ESOP, says the plan must let a participant who leaves for a reason other than reaching the plan's normal retirement age, disability or death elect to have distribution of the account begin no later than one year after the close of the fifth plan year following the plan year they left in, unless they're rehired first. Counted in plan years, that's as late as the close of the sixth one after the year they left. Unless the participant elects otherwise, the plan pays in substantially equal periodic payments, at least once a year, over no more than five years, or a longer period for very large balances. Employer shares bought with the proceeds of an ESOP loan aren't counted in the account balance for these timing rules until the close of the plan year in which the loan is repaid in full. A plan may pay sooner. DAI's own plan terms aren't on record, and they set the actual timing inside those limits.

A sourced history of DAI Global layoffs

• June 2025, Bethesda notice logged with no recall

  DAI's June 2 notice listed 62 jobs at the Bethesda address on its February notices, effective August 1, and Maryland's WARN log classed it as a no-recall mass layoff.

• February 2025, U.S. furloughs after USAID stop-work orders

  DAI furloughed 383 U.S.-based staff in the ten days to February 10, responding to stop-work orders on nearly all its projects, it told a court in a sworn statement. Maryland's WARN log typed both February notices as temporary layoffs.

What to do if you're laid off from DAI Global

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. DAI Global's biggest hubs: Maryland. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what DAI Global's hub states run: Maryland, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.