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California layoffs / Phillips 66

Phillips 66 California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

Phillips 66 has 7 layoff notices on file with California's Employment Development Department (EDD) under the state's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, covering 298 jobs in Los Angeles County. That is what the state has published since July 2025, not an all-time total. If you were one of them, here is what the filing says, how much notice the law asks for, and what to look at before you sign anything.

What the filing says

These are the details as Phillips 66 reported them to the state. The EDD publishes every notice, and this page reflects the data as of Jul 31, 2026.

LocationCountyNotice givenJobs endWorkersType
WilmingtonLos Angeles CountyFeb 2, 2026Apr 3, 202682Closure Permanent
CarsonLos Angeles CountyFeb 2, 2026Apr 3, 202640Closure Permanent
WilmingtonLos Angeles CountyApr 10, 2026Jun 10, 202610Closure Permanent
CarsonLos Angeles CountyApr 10, 2026Jun 10, 20266Closure Permanent
WilmingtonLos Angeles CountyJul 16, 2026Sep 16, 20265Closure Permanent
WilmingtonLos Angeles CountyJan 26, 2026Dec 1, 2026111Closure Permanent
CarsonLos Angeles CountyJan 26, 2026Dec 1, 202644Closure Permanent

How much notice the law requires

California's WARN Act requires 60 days of advance written notice before a covered mass layoff. What makes the California version unusual is how few ways out it gives an employer. The only statutory exception is a physical calamity or an act of war. Federal law has three exceptions, including one for unforeseeable business circumstances, and the California Legislature deliberately declined to copy them.

What this filing shows

The shortest gap in these filings is 60 calendar days between the notice date and the date the jobs end. That is at or above the 60 days the statute describes.

This is a fact drawn from the public filing, not a conclusion that anyone broke the law. The date an employer records is not always the date workers were told, employers of different sizes are covered differently, and exceptions can apply. Whether it means anything in your case is exactly what a free consultation sorts out.

Phillips 66 severance: what to check before you sign

A severance offer is not the same thing as the notice pay the WARN Act describes, and an employer cannot use one to satisfy the other. A release may also give up more than you expect, and an arbitration agreement you signed at hire can affect where a dispute is heard. Read our full guide to the California WARN Act before you decide, and consider having the paperwork looked at.

Two things worth doing this week either way. File for unemployment now, because WARN money does not reduce it. And keep every document, including the notice itself and anything showing when it arrived.

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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, it is worth reading down this list against it.

  • Everything federal law requires. A California notice has to carry all the elements the federal WARN Act calls for, including whether the action is permanent, the expected date, and whether bumping rights exist.
  • Whether transition help is being coordinated. The notice must say whether the employer is arranging services through your local workforce development board, through some other organization, or not at all.
  • A working email and phone number for that board, plus a short standard paragraph pointing you to an America's Job Center of California for help with a resume, interview practice, job searching, and training programs.
  • Services arranged within 30 days. If the employer said it would coordinate services, the statute gives it 30 days from the date of the notice to actually set them up.
  • CalFresh information. A description of the CalFresh food assistance program, the benefits helpline, and a link to the CalFresh website.
  • A working email and phone number for the employer. Not a no-reply address — a route back to a person.

Source: Labor Code section 1401, as amended by SB 617 (Stats. 2025, ch. 229), effective January 1, 2026. A notice missing something on this list is not automatically a violation with a remedy attached, and this page does not say that it is. Whether a gap matters depends on the employer, the action, and what else happened.

Questions people are asking

What is the Phillips 66 severance package?

The WARN notice Phillips 66 filed with the state does not list severance terms, and we do not publish any employer's package. A WARN notice reports how many jobs end, where, and when. Severance is a separate contract offered at the employer's discretion. California law does not require it, and an employer cannot use contractual severance to satisfy what the WARN Act requires, so being offered a package does not by itself answer whether notice pay is also owed. If you have an offer in hand, the terms in front of you are the ones that matter, and they are worth reading closely before the deadline on them runs.

Am I owed severance from Phillips 66?

California law does not require severance on its own, and a severance offer is a separate thing from WARN pay. An employer cannot use contractual severance to satisfy its WARN obligation, so being offered a package does not answer whether notice pay is also owed.

Does taking the severance reduce what I could recover?

It depends on why the money is being paid. Severance the employer was already obligated to provide — under a contract, a policy, a benefit plan, or a union agreement — cannot be set against what the WARN Act requires. A payment that is genuinely voluntary and unconditional, one the employer had no legal obligation to make, can reduce that liability. Wages for work you actually performed during the notice period are not voluntary severance at all. Which category an offer falls into is a question about the document in front of you, not about the layoff, and it is one of the better reasons to have the paperwork read before the deadline on it runs.

Does it matter that this was filed as a closure?

It can. California's WARN Act covers a closure, a mass layoff, and a relocation, and the thresholds are not identical. A closure means the site itself is shutting down rather than shedding part of its staff, which can change who is counted and whether the statute applies at all. It also tends to mean there is no role to be recalled to.

Why do co-workers have different last days?

The filings here list 4 separate last days of work. Employers commonly stagger a reduction so some functions run longer than others. Your own notice period is measured against your date, not the earliest one in the filing, so two people at the same employer can be in genuinely different positions.

What if I did not get 60 days of notice?

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. That is far narrower than federal law, which has three exceptions. The shortest gap in these filings is 60 days, at or above the 60 the statute describes. Notice can still fall short in practice if it did not reach you when the filing says, or if it lacked what the statute requires it to contain.

Can I still collect unemployment?

Yes. Under Labor Code section 1407, WARN-related payments are not treated as wages for unemployment purposes, so they cannot be used to deny or reduce your benefits in California. You do not have to wait for your last day — the filings here run through Dec 1, 2026 — and filing early is generally better than filing late.

Does taking a new job hurt my claim?

No. Wages you earn at a new job during the notice period do not reduce what a former employer may owe under WARN. You do not need to delay a job search to protect a claim.

How long do I have to act?

Generally three years. The federal WARN Act sets no limitations period of its own, so courts borrow the closest state deadline, which in California is the three-year period for a liability created by statute. The clock starts when you suffer an employment loss, not when the notice went out. Measured from the last day of work in these filings, Dec 1, 2026, three years runs to about Dec 1, 2029. If this was a layoff rather than an outright termination, the loss may not count until the layoff has lasted more than six months, which can start the clock later still. Treat all of it as an outer edge rather than a plan. Other claims arising from the same layoff run much shorter, and a severance offer usually carries its own deadline measured in days.

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.

Phillips 66 filed for 277 layoffs across 2026 tied to the permanent closure of its Los Angeles-area refinery. E&E News reported the cuts are phased: 82 employees in Wilmington and 40 in Carson on April 3, 2026, then 111 in Wilmington and 44 in Carson on December 1, 2026, with the filings citing permanent closure as the reason.

The refinery, which could process 139,000 barrels a day, had been slated for closure since 2024 and ran its last barrel of crude in late 2025. BOE Report noted the site employed roughly 600 workers plus about 300 contractors, and that over half of the employees were hourly workers represented by the United Steelworkers.

Details worth knowing

  • The separation dates are staggered by roughly eight months, so two workers at the same site can have very different last days -- check which of the four notices names your position before planning around a date.
  • Neither report described severance terms, transfers to other Phillips 66 sites, or retraining assistance.
  • Because much of the hourly workforce is United Steelworkers-represented per BOE Report, contract terms may govern severance and recall for those employees.

Sources: E&E News by POLITICO (opens in a new tab)BOE Report (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

  • The filings name 2 locations: Wilmington and Carson.
  • They cover 3 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 4 separate last days of work, running from April 3, 2026 to December 1, 2026.
  • By headcount it sits in the top 10% of the 593 employer layoffs tracked here.
  • The EDD records the employer's sector as Manufacturing.
  • The 298 workers leaving Phillips 66 re-enter a job market where Los Angeles County unemployment stood at 5.3% in June 2026, above the 5.2% statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).
  • The filings came in waves: 2 notices in January 2026 covering 155 jobs, then 2 notices in February 2026 covering 122 jobs, then 2 notices in April 2026 covering 16 jobs, then one notice in July 2026 covering 5 jobs.

These are counts and comparisons drawn from the published filings, not findings about Phillips 66.

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; these are the closest to the sites in these filings.

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 Los Angeles County around the same time

158 employers have WARN notices on file in Los Angeles County, covering 17,303 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

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

Other Manufacturing layoffs in California

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

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

Key points

Each point is explained and sourced above · Verified July 31, 2026

Key points from Phillips 66 California layoffs 2026, verified as of July 31, 2026

  • Workers affected · Los Angeles County · published since July 2025

    298

    CA EDD WARN report

  • Notices filed · California · published July 2025 to July 2026

    7

    CA EDD WARN report

  • Jobs end · As filed

    Dec 1, 2026

    CA EDD WARN report

  • Days between notice and last day · Arithmetic on two published dates

    60 calendar days

    CA EDD WARN report

  • Los Angeles County unemployment rate · vs 5.2% statewide, not seasonally adjusted

    5.3% (June 2026)

    BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics

  • Notice California law describes · California

    60 days before a covered mass layoff

    Lab. Code § 1401

  • Available exceptions · California

    Physical calamity or act of war only

    Lab. Code § 1401

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