Laid off from The GEO Group.

What The GEO Group layoffs have meant for employees

If you work at a GEO site, the decision that ends your job can come from an agency you've never dealt with. GEO's 2020 annual report shows the Bureau of Prisons stepping away from D. Ray James and Rivers during 2020, before President Biden's January 2021 order against private prison contracts, so that order doesn't explain those two, though KOSA tied the Big Spring closings to it. GEO's full-time count fell from about 20,000 at the end of 2020 to about 15,800 a year later, the same stretch in which the contracts for Great Plains, Queens and Big Spring ended and two Florida prisons moved to another operator. It stood near 18,000 by December 2025.

A closing notice won't tell you who walked away, and two accounts of one closing can both be accurate. New Mexico heard from GEO first, then ended the contract sooner than GEO's own date. In Louisiana, GEO's letter called the stop permanent while ICE said the facility wasn't closing, as The Advocate laid out. If your site's contract is in doubt, the customer agency's public statements can add to what GEO's letter says, the way ICE's did about Basile.

What a state has promised GEO's staff has varied from one takeover to the next. Oklahoma's corrections department said all current Lawton employees would be offered jobs, pending background checks, KFDX reported. The Virginia Department of Corrections promised less at Lawrenceville, a chance to apply for state jobs. New Mexico's corrections department scheduled a hiring event in Hobbs for May 29, about a month before the June 30 end, while the state's workforce agency was still hoping GEO would let it meet employees, the Albuquerque Journal reported. If a state taking over your prison hands you a job offer or an invitation to apply, the two aren't the same thing, and you can weigh which you've got before you plan around it. At Big Spring the reported effort was GEO's own, a push to move staff into other GEO jobs, and if you're offered one of those, the distance to the opening is part of the weighing.

GEO owned Rivers and D. Ray James outright, so losing the customer didn't end the building. Its 2025 annual report says some idle facilities have sat for years before a new award, and at the end of 2025 it was marketing 5,896 vacant beds at six of them. The returns on record came through ICE, not the Bureau of Prisons that left, and North Lake in Michigan and Delaney Hall in Newark drew ICE contracts in 2025 too. So a building's comeback brings a different customer and a different population than the job you may remember, on a timetable set by a federal contract.

GEO's filings also carry staffing costs with no contract date in front of them. The annual report places employee severance in electronic monitoring and pairs a senior management reorganization at the end of 2024 with other employee restructuring in 2025, and it gives both without a site or a headcount. GEO's August 2026 release separately says lower labor costs helped results and that guidance assumed a smaller contribution from labor cost savings for the rest of the year, without identifying what lowered them. Staff at Rivers and Big Spring, by contrast, had a public contract date to watch.

About 8,200 GEO employees in the United States were under collective bargaining agreements as of December 2025. If you're one of them, your local can be a second line of information when a contract's end date gets close, including on whether your agreement has recall rights or severance terms.

A sourced history of The GEO Group layoffs

• 2025 and 2026, employee restructuring costs

  GEO's 2025 annual report tied higher electronic monitoring costs partly to employee severance under an efficiency initiative and put that year's employee restructuring line near $2 million. Its August 2026 release added $592,000 for the first half of 2026.

• May 2025, Lea County prison closing in Hobbs

  GEO told New Mexico in January it wouldn't extend past November, a move a state spokeswoman called unilateral, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The state's termination notice took effect June 30, GEO's 2025 annual report says. Our tracker's May 1 filing lists 203 jobs.

• May 2024, Lawrenceville closure filing in Virginia

  The Virginia Department of Corrections said it would take over the state's only privately run prison when GEO's contract ended Aug. 1, 2024, and that staff could apply for state jobs. GEO's filing in our tracker lists 235 jobs.

• November 2023, Pine Prairie layoffs in Louisiana

  GEO Secure Services said it would stop running the ICE center on Jan. 2 and lay off 119 employees, The Advocate reported. An ICE spokesperson said the site wasn't closing and cited staffing at Pine Prairie and Basile.

• August 2021, Big Spring and Flightline nonrenewal notices

  GEO learned the Bureau of Prisons wouldn't renew the two Texas prisons past Nov. 30, the 2021 annual report says. KOSA reported GEO was working to move its 350 employees there into other GEO jobs.

• June 2021, Florida rebid of Bay and Graceville prisons

  GEO lost both contracts in a state rebid and they moved to another operator, its 2021 annual report says. Our tracker's Florida filings list 152 jobs in Panama City and 213 in Graceville. GEO's August 2026 release expected the two back on July 1, 2027.

• March 2021, Great Plains and Queens nonrenewals

  The Bureau of Prisons passed on renewing Great Plains in Oklahoma, which ran to May 31, and the U.S. Marshals let the Queens Detention contract in New York end March 31, GEO's 2021 annual report says.

• November 2020, Rivers rebid decision in Winton, North Carolina

  The Bureau of Prisons decided not to rebid Rivers, GEO's 2020 annual report says, and the prison closed when the contract ended March 31, 2021. WAVY put the job losses at 350.

• June 2020, D. Ray James decision in Folkston, Georgia

  The Bureau of Prisons told GEO it wouldn't re-solicit 1,900 beds there, and a four-month extension carried the contract to Jan. 31, 2021, the 2020 annual report says. Our tracker lists 316 jobs for Folkston with a Sept. 30, 2020 date.

What to do if you're laid off from The GEO Group

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. The GEO Group's biggest hubs: Texas, New Jersey, California, Florida. 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 The GEO Group's hub states run: Texas, New Jersey, California, Florida, 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.