Layoffs in North Dakota.

One caveat before the numbers. Our North Dakota archive runs from 2015 to 2026 but is missing the year 2021, which our source feed never supplied. Counts and comparisons here describe the years we actually hold, so treat any multi-year pattern with that hole in mind.

Where North Dakota layoffs have been concentrated

Williston supplies the pattern that makes this state distinctive. Oilfield service companies filed there repeatedly, a well services operator for 212 and another for 204, and that industry's employment tracks drilling activity rather than the wider economy. A cut in the Bakken can reverse within a year if prices move, which is a genuinely different situation from a plant closing and should change how long you wait before relocating.

Fargo is the opposite kind of employer base. A marketing services company filed for 304, an IT services firm for 223, a mapping and location technology business for 173. These are back office and technology operations whose decisions are made elsewhere and whose cuts do not reverse with a commodity price.

Coal country contributes the third thread, with a contractor filing 387 at Beulah, and Bismarck supplies logistics and administrative filings.

Two caveats for the rail below. Our North Dakota record has no coverage for 2021, and one row in it carries a California hospital that plainly does not belong to this state, which is a fault in our aggregation rather than in the state's filing. Nothing on this page is built on that row.

The companies that keep filing in North Dakota

In an economy this cyclical, repeat filing usually means an industry rather than a company in trouble. The North Dakota filers that crossed three notices in the period we hold.

• Cygnus Home Service, LLC (dba Yelloh) · 3 notices since 2023

Where oilfield service companies appear repeatedly, treat that as the sector breathing rather than as evidence about any single employer. The same names have historically rehired when activity returned.

North Dakota relies on the federal act alone

North Dakota has no notice statute of its own. The state is not among the thirteen with mini-WARN acts, so the federal act is the whole of it. Sixty days, from employers of a hundred or more, for cuts meeting the federal definitions.

Job Service North Dakota receives the filings, publishes them and runs rapid response. It does not claim authority to investigate a short notice or to penalise one.

Oilfield employment complicates the coverage question more than most sectors. Crews move between service companies, headcounts swing seasonally, and a company's national workforce may be far larger than its North Dakota presence. Since the federal test counts the employer rather than the site, a modest Williston crew belonging to a large national contractor can still be covered.

A short notice is pursued federally, by the workers rather than by any agency. Recoverable are pay and benefits for every missing day up to sixty, and the court may put the winner's fees on the loser.

What happens after a WARN notice is filed in North Dakota

Filings go to Job Service North Dakota, which publishes them and supplies the record on this page, and rapid response follows through its offices.

If you were laid off from oilfield services, the first question is whether the reduction tracks activity levels or a permanent exit. Service company crews in the Bakken have historically been rehired when drilling picked up, and that history is worth weighing before you move.

Fargo workers should treat the Fargo and Moorhead labor market as one, since the state line runs through the middle of it. Your claim generally belongs to the state where the wages were earned rather than where you live, and getting that wrong costs weeks.

File the North Dakota claim without waiting. Our North Dakota benefits page has the weekly figures, how long they run, and the state portal.

Use what North Dakota owes you

• If your layoff came from an oilfield service company, ask whether the crew is being released or the operation closed. In the Bakken those have historically been different outcomes.
• Count the parent company's national headcount rather than your Williston or Bismarck crew when working out whether notice was owed.
• Fargo and Moorhead function as one metro split by a state line. An unemployment claim follows the payroll rather than your address, and picking the wrong side costs weeks of rerouting.
• In coal country, ask the local Job Service office which retraining programs are tied to dislocated worker funding, since what that money covers reaches further than most people assume.
• Open the North Dakota claim through our benefits page the week work ends, regardless of whether you expect a recall.

The biggest layoffs in North Dakota's record

Our North Dakota record runs from 2015 and holds 54 rows, with 2020 the heaviest at fifteen and no coverage at all for 2021.

The span covers the tail of the Bakken boom and the adjustments that followed it, which is why oilfield service names recur and why the volume moves with drilling rather than with national conditions.

Because the archive is both short and gapped, this page describes named events rather than trends, and the individual notices carry more information than the totals do.

Common questions