Synopsys, Inc. California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

What the filing says

These are the details as Synopsys, Inc. reported them to the state. The EDD publishes every notice, and this page reflects the data as of Aug 6, 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.

Synopsys 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 May 26, 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. 1 of the 5 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

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.

Synopsys will cut 175 jobs at multiple sites in Sunnyvale, The Mercury News reported, citing the WARN notice the chip-design software company sent to the state Employment Development Department. The layoffs were described as permanent and the company intends to conduct them around Jan. 12, 2026.

The Sunnyvale cuts are part of a plan to eliminate about 10% of Synopsys' global workforce — up to roughly 2,800 positions out of about 28,000 employees — following the company's $35 billion acquisition of Pennsylvania engineering-simulation firm Ansys, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Synopsys said the move "will allow Synopsys to invest in key growth opportunities and drive business efficiencies."

The Chronicle reported that Synopsys expects pre-tax charges of $300 million to $350 million covering severance and site closure costs, with most of the reductions occurring during fiscal 2026 and the plan completed by the end of fiscal 2027. The Mercury News reported the Synopsys notice arrived alongside a separate filing from Clari cutting 96 Sunnyvale jobs, part of slightly more than 2,000 Bay Area tech jobs noticed to the state in about three weeks.

Sources: The Mercury News (opens in a new tab) · San Francisco Chronicle (via Yahoo Finance) (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

• The 230 affected positions are in Sunnyvale.
• They cover 5 separate addresses rather than a single site, so co-workers at different locations may have received different dates.
• The jobs do not all end on the same day. The filings list 2 separate last days of work, running from January 12, 2026 to May 26, 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.
• By headcount it sits in the top 15% of the 601 employer layoffs tracked here.
• The 230 workers leaving Synopsys, Inc. re-enter a job market where Santa Clara County unemployment stood at 4% in June 2026, below the 5.2% statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).
• The filings came in waves: 4 notices in November 2025 covering 175 jobs, then one notice in March 2026 covering 55 jobs.

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

Free job-search help near Sunnyvale

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.

• NOVAworks (opens in a new tab)

  456 W. Olive Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 · 408-730-7232

  Comprehensive center (full services on site) · about 1.6 miles from the Sunnyvale 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 Santa Clara County around the same time

73 employers have WARN notices on file in Santa Clara County, covering 11,472 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

• Amazon6,938 workers
• Meta Platforms, Inc.4,150 workers
• Walmart587 workers
• Applied Materials, Inc.363 workers
• Broadcom Inc.247 workers
• BILL Operations, LLC213 workers

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