The Impact of Advance Notice: A Rejoinder

Abstract

N our recent study (ILR Review, July 1991), using data from the 1988 CPS Displaced Workers Survey, we found that workers who were given at least 60 days' written advance notification of layoffs due to plant closings or relocations had significantly lower reemployment earnings losses and a lower probability of experiencing positive unemployment spells than did other workers. The implication from the results of our study was that the hardships suffered by workers who lose their jobs due to plant closings or relocations are likely to be lessened if they receive 60 or more days of written notice, rather than less formal types of notification or written notice of lesser duration. These results certainly appear to be supportive of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) of 1988, which requires employers with 100 or more employees to provide written advance notice of at least 60 days to workers who are to be laid off due to a plant closing or relocation. In this issue of the ILR Review, Addison and Portugal report finding that written advance notice of layoffs due to plant closings has a significant effect in lowering the probability of experiencing positive unemployment spells for white-collar workers, but no similar significant effect for blue-collar workers. In reference to our study, they assert that they find no support for Nord and Ting's general proposition that longer intervals of written notice increase the probability of avoiding joblessness (p. 658) Also in this issue,