Workday Inc. California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

What the filing says

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

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.

Workday 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.

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, 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 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.

The Pleasanton filing is part of a company-wide reduction of roughly 400 employees — about 2% of Workday's global workforce — announced February 4, 2026, with most cuts targeting what the company called non-revenue-generating roles on its Global Customer Operations team, The Register reported.

HR Executive reported the restructuring is expected to be largely complete by late April 2026 and is Workday's second major reduction in about 13 months, following an 8.5% workforce cut the prior year; the company said it plans to continue hiring in key strategic areas and locations in its fiscal 2027.

Sources: The Register (opens in a new tab) · HR Executive (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

• The 154 affected positions are in Pleasanton.
• By headcount it sits in the top 25% of the 593 employer layoffs tracked here.
• The 154 workers leaving Workday Inc. re-enter a job market where Alameda County unemployment stood at 4.4% in June 2026, below the 5.2% statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).

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

Other layoffs filed in Alameda County around the same time

55 employers have WARN notices on file in Alameda County, covering 4,541 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

• Lucid Group, Inc.455 workers
• Supernal, LLC296 workers
• Primary School294 workers
• Alameda Health System240 workers
• Heritage Bank of Commerce121 workers
• DHL Supply Chain107 workers

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