By Adam Pagnucco.
According to Work Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices filed with the State of Maryland, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) laid off 2,755 employees in one day. This could just be the beginning as the Trump administration continues to implement draconian employment and funding cuts across federal agencies.
Here is the distribution of HHS layoffs that occurred on March 31, 2025.
Rockville: 925
Silver Spring: 650
Bethesda: 525
Woodlawn: 140
Baltimore: 90
Frederick: 90
Laurel: 85
Bowie: 70
Gaithersburg: 70
Upper Marlboro: 60
Germantown: 50
Montgomery County accounted for 2,220 of these layoffs, or 81% of the total.
How bad is the economic damage going to be? Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has months and years of lag time at the local level, so it will take a while for us to measure it.
WARN notice data is more timely but it’s incomplete. The federal WARN Act requires “employers with 100 or more employees (generally not counting those who have worked less than six months in the last 12 months and those who work an average of less than 20 hours a week) to provide at least 60 calendar days advance written notice of a plant closing and mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment.” This data excludes small employers and self-employed people. It also cannot measure employer decisions to not hire or to reduce their workforce through attrition.
With that in mind, the state’s WARN log has recorded 6,870 employees affected by plant closures or layoffs as of March 31, 2025.
For all of 2024, 7,309 employees were affected.
For all of 2023, 5,632 employees were affected.
For all of 2022, 7,022 employees were affected.
The state has seen roughly a year of lost jobs due to layoffs in only three months.