Blue Diamond Growers California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

What the filing says

These are the details as Blue Diamond Growersreported them to the state. The EDD publishes every notice, and these figures come from the state's report as retrieved on Aug 13, 2026.

How much notice the law requires

California's WARN Act requires 60 days of advance written notice before a covered mass layoff, and its only statutory exception is a physical calamity or an act of war — far narrower than federal law's three. Who is covered and how the thresholds are counted is in our California WARN Act guide.

Blue Diamond Growers severance: what to check before you sign

A severance offer is not the notice pay the WARN Act describes. Severance you were already promised — in a contract, a handbook, or a union agreement — cannot be used to satisfy that obligation, though Labor Code section 1402 does let an employer reduce a back-pay award by voluntary payments it was never required to make. A release may also give up more than you expect. Justin reviews severance agreements before workers sign. What to check before you decide is in our full guide to the California WARN Act.

Two things worth doing this week either way. File for unemployment now — WARN money does not reduce it, and the filings here run through Sep 4, 2026, so you do not have to wait for your last day. And keep every document, including the notice itself and anything showing when it arrived.

What your notice was required to include

Timing is only half of what Labor Code section 1401 asks for. The notice itself has to contain specific things, and California added most of this list for notices issued on or after January 1, 2026. 7 of the 8 notices here fall after that date; the earlier ones were not subject to the new content rules. If you kept your copy, read it against the full six-item checklist in our WARN Act guide — everything federal law requires, whether transition help is being coordinated, working contact details for your workforce board and for the employer itself, and CalFresh information.

Source: Labor Code section 1401, as amended by SB 617, effective January 1, 2026. A notice missing something from that list is not automatically a violation with a remedy attached — whether a gap matters depends on the employer, the action, and what else happened.

Questions people are asking

Where a layoff can raise a legal question

A layoff is lawful on its own, and nothing below is a statement about Blue Diamond Growers. These are the places California law can still come into play, depending on the facts of your own situation.

• The severance you were asked to signA release can give up claims you did not know you had, and the terms are sometimes negotiable.
• How you were selectedA reduction in force still cannot be used to cut someone for a protected reason such as age, disability, pregnancy, or a complaint they made.
• Your final paycheckCalifornia sets when final wages are due at termination, and unpaid time or accrued vacation can carry penalties on top of the wages.
• The length of the notice periodWhere a notice period turns out to fall short of what the law required, the question usually belongs to everyone in the same position rather than to one person.

General information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

What has been reported

Press coverage of this layoff, summarized and attributed. This is reporting rather than the filing itself, and we did not independently verify it.

Blue Diamond Growers is closing its 50-acre C Street manufacturing plant in Sacramento in phases and consolidating production into its Turlock and Salida facilities, National Nut Grower reported. About 600 of the roughly 632 employees at the site are affected, with layoffs running in three phases: September 2025, March 2026, and a final round in September 2026.

President and CEO Kai Bockmann said "the challenges of running a plant from these historical buildings has become too costly and inefficient," according to National Nut Grower. The cooperative's corporate headquarters will remain in Sacramento.

Sources: National Nut Grower (opens in a new tab) · AgNet West (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

• The 280 affected positions are in Sacramento.
• They cover 2 separate addresses rather than a single site, so co-workers at different locations may have received different dates.
• Every notice is filed as a closure rather than a partial reduction, meaning the sites themselves are shutting down.
• The jobs do not all end on the same day. The filings list 8 separate last days of work, running from September 1, 2025 to September 4, 2026.
• At least one notice here is dated 100 days after the last day of work it reports. Notices are sometimes filed or amended after the fact, so this describes the paperwork rather than when anyone was told.
• Within Sacramento County, this accounts for 8% of all workers covered by WARN notices on file, across 33 employers.
• By headcount it sits in the top 10% of the 599 employer layoffs tracked here.
• The EDD records the employer's sector as Manufacturing.
• The 280 workers leaving Blue Diamond Growers re-enter a job market where Sacramento County unemployment stood at 4.8% in June 2026, below the 5.2% statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).
• The filings arrived in 5 separate months between December 2025 and July 2026 — a rolling reduction rather than a single event. The heaviest was June 2026, when 3 notices covered 189 jobs.

These are counts and comparisons drawn from the published filings, not findings about Blue Diamond Growers.

Free job-search help near Sacramento

America's Job Center of California is the state's no-cost network for laid-off workers: help filing and keeping unemployment benefits, federally funded retraining, and résumé and interview coaching. Your WARN notice may name one; this is the closest to the site in these filings.

• Asian Resources, Inc. (ARI) AJCC (opens in a new tab)

  2411 Alhambra Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95817 · 916-324-6202

  Affiliate center (partial services) · about 2 miles from the Sacramento site

Locations and hours change — confirm before visiting, or find another center with the EDD's center locator (opens in a new tab). Directory: U.S. Department of Labor, Jul 31, 2026; distances are straight-line from the address in the filing.

Other layoffs filed in Sacramento County around the same time

33 employers have WARN notices on file in Sacramento County, covering 3,618 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

• Amazon6,975 workers
• Educational Testing Service757 workers
• Wells Fargo141 workers
• FPI Management, Inc.105 workers
• New Punch Bowl Sacramento, LLC83 workers
• Five Guys Operations71 workers

Listed because they appear in the same county in the same public data. No connection between these employers is implied.

California wage claims filed against Blue Diamond Growers

California employers face claims under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), which lets an employee sue for civil penalties over Labor Code violations on behalf of the state. The state publishes every filing. 6 PAGA cases naming this employer are on that record, including the settlements below.

These are outcomes in other people’s cases, obtained by other lawyers, taken from the state’s public filing record. They are not results of this firm, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. What any individual recovers depends on their own hours, pay records, and dates.

• Court-approved settlement · 2025

  $5,093,537

  The court granted final approval to a class action settlement covering current and former non-exempt California employees of Blue Diamond Growers. The settlement resolves claims about wage and hour violations. The court certified the class for settlement purposes only and ordered distribution of the settlement funds.

  Covered all current and former non-exempt California employees employed directly by defendant Blue Diamond Growers ("Blue Diamond") who worked at any time during the Class Period. The settlement resolved class claims as well as PAGA penalties.

  Employees covered

  2,392

  Attorneys' fees

  $1,782,738

  To the state (LWDA)

  $187,500

  Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Sacramento · 34-2022-00319378 · Blue Diamond Growers denied liability; a settlement is not an admission.

• Court-approved settlement · 2026

  $280,000

  The court approved a PAGA settlement for non-exempt employees who worked for Adecco USA and were staffed to Blue Diamond in California. The employees alleged they were not paid all minimum and overtime wages, denied meal and rest periods, not given accurate wage statements, not reimbursed for business expenses, and not paid all wages upon termination. The settlement resolves these claims without any admission of liability.

  Covered all current and former non-exempt alleged employees who were associates for Defendant and were staffed to Blue Diamond within the State of California during the PAGA Period. The settlement resolved PAGA civil penalties only.

  Employees covered

  2,877

  Attorneys' fees

  $84,000

  To the state (LWDA)

  $113,517

  Superior Court of California, County of Orange · 2020-01123754 · Blue Diamond Growers denied liability; a settlement is not an admission.

A PAGA case is not a class action, and there is nothing to opt out of. A PAGA settlement resolves civil penalties owed to the state — most of which the state keeps — and it does not necessarily resolve your own unpaid wages, missed break premiums, or final-paycheck penalties. If you worked here and were not paid correctly, that is a separate question worth asking about. How California wage claims work.

Other Manufacturing layoffs in California

Employers the EDD lists in the same sector with WARN notices on file statewide.

• Phillips 66298 workers
• Bumble Bee Foods, LLC253 workers
• LeeMAH Electronics212 workers
• Ventura Coastal210 workers
• G3 Enterprises66 workers
• Eargo, Inc.57 workers

Grouped by the industry the EDD recorded on the filings. No connection between these employers is implied.