KBR Services LLC California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

What the filing says

These are the details as KBR Services LLCreported 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.

KBR Services 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 Aug 1, 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. Every notice on this page falls after that date. 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 KBR Services. 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.

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.

KBR's March 2026 filing covers workers at Fort Irwin, the Army's National Training Center in the Mojave Desert. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the state filing listed 758 affected California positions at Fort Irwin's Building 896, with the layoffs planned to occur by May 6, 2026.

The number of workers actually separated may be far smaller than the filing's position count. The San Bernardino County Sentinel reported that at least 59 maintenance, logistics and support personnel would be laid off — 35 tactical vehicle mechanics, 15 lead mechanics and nine warehouse workers — most working out of or within Building 896. A filing can list every position in an affected classification while union bumping and reassignment determine who actually leaves, so workers in these roles should confirm their individual status rather than assume either number applies to them.

KBR cited a decrease in work allocated from customers in its filing with California's Employment Development Department, and the Chronicle reported the affected roles as 482 tactical vehicle mechanics, 42 parts clerks, 31 technical wheel inspectors, 28 senior mechanics and 25 general equipment foremen, among others.

Sources: San Francisco Chronicle (via Yahoo Finance) (opens in a new tab) · San Bernardino County Sentinel (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

• The filings name 2 locations: Fort Irwin and Barstow.
• They cover 2 separate addresses rather than a single site, so co-workers at different locations may have received different dates.
• At least one notice is marked temporary rather than permanent. A temporary designation is what the employer reported; it is not a promise of recall.
• The jobs do not all end on the same day. The filings list 2 separate last days of work, running from May 6, 2026 to August 1, 2026.
• The shortest gap between notice and last day here is 61 days, close to the statewide median of 61 days across every notice on file.
• Within San Bernardino County, this accounts for 30% of all workers covered by WARN notices on file, across 35 employers.
• By headcount it is the 5th-largest of the 599 employer layoffs tracked here.
• The 1,408 workers leaving KBR Services LLC re-enter a job market where San Bernardino County unemployment stood at 5.2% in June 2026, level with the statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).
• The filings came in waves: one notice in March 2026 covering 758 jobs, then one notice in May 2026 covering 650 jobs.

These are counts and comparisons drawn from the published filings, not findings about KBR Services.

Free job-search help near the affected sites

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.

• High Desert America`s Job Center of California (opens in a new tab)

  17310 Bear Valley Road, Victorville, CA 92395 · 760-552-6550 or 6552

  Affiliate center (partial services) · about 69.2 miles from the Fort Irwin 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 San Bernardino County around the same time

35 employers have WARN notices on file in San Bernardino County, covering 4,671 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

• Geodis319 workers
• Searles Valley Minerals270 workers
• Frito-Lay, Inc.248 workers
• Bedabox, LLC145 workers
• Aramark Campus, LLC143 workers
• Legacy Supply Chain129 workers

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