Starting today, New Jersey businesses with at least 100 full-time employees will be required to provide severance pay to both full-time and part-time workers after mass layoffs of 50 or more workers.
In addition, companies laying off 50 or more workers must notify employees 90 days in advance, which is up from previously required 60 days. Workers must also receive a week of severance pay for every year they have worked. If employers do not comply, they must pay the employee an additional four weeks of pay.
Severance protections were signed into law back in 2020, but stalled for three years after lawmakers decided to delay implementation during the pandemic, when businesses shuttered and unemployment claims skyrocketed. Gov. Phil Murphy signed a new bill in January this year to put the requirements into effect.
The new law expands on the New Jersey Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires large companies to provide notice of mass layoffs. Employers post layoff notices on the New Jersey Labor Department website.
State Sen. Joseph Cryan (D-Union) introduced the bill in 2018 after Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy and laid off thousands of New Jersey workers. Employees were initially let go without severance, but after public pressure, the company set up a severance fund for laid-off workers.
Bed Bath & Beyond, whose headquarters are based in Union, N.J., laid off more than 1,000 workers in late March and early April, shortly before the law kicked into effect. Cryan said the move violated the spirit of the law, and protected company executives instead.
“Workers are the core foundation of any company," Cryan said. "The fact that Bed Bath & Beyond has made the decision to evade compliance with requirements of the WARN Act, which goes into effect just one day after this mass layoff, cannot be accepted as a simple timing coincidence. It is intentional, it is calculated and it is disgraceful."
