California layoffs / Searles Valley Minerals

Searles Valley Minerals California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

Searles Valley Minerals has a layoff notice on file with California's Employment Development Department (EDD) under the state's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, covering 270 jobs in San Bernardino County. That is what the state has published since July 2025. 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 Searles Valley Minerals reported them to the state. The EDD publishes every notice, and this page reflects the data as of Aug 6, 2026.

Location	County	Notice given	Jobs end	Workers	Type
Trona	San Bernardino County	Feb 6, 2026	Apr 7, 2026	270	Layoff Permanent

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.

What this filing shows

This filing shows 60 calendar days between the notice date and the date the jobs end. That is at or above the 60 days the statute describes.

In dates: counting 60 days back from the Apr 7, 2026 last day of work lands on Feb 6, 2026, and the notice is dated Feb 6, 2026.

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.

Searles Valley Minerals severance: what to check before you sign

A severance offer is not the notice pay the WARN Act describes, and an employer cannot use one to satisfy the other — and a release may give up more than you expect. 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 Apr 7, 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.

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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. This notice 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

What is the Searles Valley Minerals severance package?

Press coverage reported specific terms for this round: a severance package offered in exchange for agreeing to the company's severance terms and signing a release of claims, according to Sierra Wave. The WARN notice itself does not list severance terms, and an individual offer can differ from what was reported, so the document in front of you is the one that controls. Severance is also separate from WARN notice pay: California law does not require severance, and an employer cannot use contractual severance to satisfy what the WARN Act requires. Read your offer closely before the deadline on it runs.

Am I owed severance from Searles Valley Minerals?

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 Searles Valley Minerals's 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.

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. This filing shows 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 Apr 7, 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 Searles Valley Minerals may owe under WARN. That holds even if you start before Apr 7, 2026, the last day of work in this filing. 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 this filing, Apr 7, 2026, three years runs to about Apr 7, 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.

Searles Valley Minerals gave notice on February 6, 2026 that it would idle its Trona and Argus operations, with employment separations effective April 7, 2026 and the plants going idle April 8, according to Sierra Wave: Eastern Sierra News. Sierra Wave reported the action affects more than 350 workers across the two operations and that the company expects the separations to be permanent.

ABC7 Los Angeles reported that the company cited "prolonged market, cost, and regulatory pressures" that it said made continued production economically unfeasible, and that it plans to focus on boron production, which it described as essential to the U.S. economy and national security.

Details worth knowing

Searles Valley Minerals said it intends to offer affected workers a severance package in exchange for agreement to severance terms and a release of claims, Sierra Wave reported.
No employee displacement based on seniority -- bumping -- will occur, according to the notice as reported by Sierra Wave.
The company is coordinating with the workforce development boards in Kern County and San Bernardino County, and America's Job Centers of California are offering resume help, interview practice, job searches, and training programs, Sierra Wave reported. It listed the Kern/Inyo/Mono Consortium at 661-336-6957 and the San Bernardino County Workforce Development Board at 909-387-9862.

Sources: Sierra Wave: Eastern Sierra News (opens in a new tab)ABC7 Los Angeles (opens in a new tab)

Recent coverage

Coverage of Searles Valley Minerals matched by our news monitor. These are the publishers' own reports, not the filing, and we have not independently verified them.

Desert community of Trona devastated by mass layoffs at Searles Valley Minerals soda ash plant (opens in a new tab) — ABC7 Los Angeles, Feb 10, 2026
Searles Valley Minerals Closes 350+ Employees Given 60 Day Notice (opens in a new tab) — Sierra Wave, Feb 7, 2026

What the numbers show

The 270 affected positions are in Trona.
The shortest gap between notice and last day here is 60 days, close to the statewide median of 61 days across every notice on file.
Within San Bernardino County, this accounts for 6% of all workers covered by WARN notices on file, across 35 employers.
By headcount it sits in the top 15% of the 601 employer layoffs tracked here.
The 270 workers leaving Searles Valley Minerals 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).

These are counts and comparisons drawn from the published filings, not findings about Searles Valley Minerals.

Free job-search help near Trona

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 this filing.

America`s Job Center of California Ridgecrest (opens in a new tab)
540 Perdew Avenue, Ridgecrest, CA 93555 · 760-384-5995
Comprehensive center (full services on site) · about 18.7 miles from the Trona 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.

KBR Services LLC1,408 workers
Frito-Lay, Inc.248 workers
Bedabox, LLC145 workers
Aramark Campus, LLC143 workers
Legacy Supply Chain129 workers
James Hardie Fontana Manufacturing94 workers

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

Key points

Each point is explained and sourced above · Verified August 6, 2026

Workers affected · San Bernardino County · published since July 2025
270
CA EDD WARN report
Notices filed · California · published July 2025 to August 2026
1
CA EDD WARN report
Jobs end · As filed
Apr 7, 2026
CA EDD WARN report
Days between notice and last day · Arithmetic on two published dates
60 calendar days
CA EDD WARN report
Approximate outer claim deadline · 3 years from the last day of work — an outer edge, other claims run shorter
About Apr 7, 2029
Code Civ. Proc. § 338(a)
San Bernardino County unemployment rate · vs 5.2% statewide, not seasonally adjusted
5.2% (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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About this data

Where it comes from. Every figure on this page is reproduced from the WARN report the California Employment Development Department publishes at edd.ca.gov (opens in a new tab), retrieved Aug 6, 2026. Employers file these notices with the state, and the state publishes them as a public record.

We make no representation that it is accurate or complete. We reproduce the state's file as published and do not independently verify it. Notices are amended and withdrawn, employers correct their own filings, layoffs are called off, and the published report can lag or contain errors. Nothing here is a substitute for the EDD's own record, and if the two disagree, the EDD's is the one that counts.

How employers are grouped. The EDD's report lists one row per notice and often names the same employer several ways — with a store or site number, a warehouse code, a per-location name, or a spelling variation. This tracker groups those filings under one employer so a company's notices appear on a single page; every underlying filing still appears as its own row in that page's table. The grouping is ours, not the EDD's, and it never combines differently named companies, even ones related through ownership.

Nothing here says an employer did anything wrong. Filing a WARN notice is what the law asks an employer to do, so appearing in this data reflects compliance with the notice requirement rather than a violation of it. Where we show the number of days between a notice and the last day of work, that is arithmetic on two published dates and not a legal conclusion. The date recorded in a filing is not necessarily the date employees were told, employers of different sizes carry different obligations, and statutory exceptions can apply. Whether any particular layoff complied with the law is a fact-specific question that this page does not answer.

This page is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Searles Valley Minerals, and any company names are used only to identify publicly filed notices.

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