New Jersey employers cut nearly 4,500 jobs from June through August, and several of the biggest reductions hit companies near Summit.
The 4,473 summer layoffs are more than 2.5 times the 1,763 cuts announced in the same period in 2025. Twenty-five companies filed more than 30 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notices with the state Department of Labor between June 1 and Aug. 31, Patch reported.
For 2026, announced layoffs in New Jersey reached 12,980 through Aug. 31. That is a 45 percent jump over the 8,979 announced through the same date in 2025.
Verizon, Novartis among the hardest-hit employers
Samsung led the June-through-August surge with 918 announced cuts at its Englewood Cliffs and Ridgefield Park sites. The company is moving its New Jersey headquarters to Texas, a shift expected to affect about 1,000 workers total.
Closer to Summit, Verizon filed three WARN notices for 473 positions between June and August. The largest, covering 282 jobs at the company's Basking Ridge campus, takes effect Oct. 16, according to NJ.com. Verizon has cut 594 jobs in New Jersey so far in 2026.
Novartis announced in July it would eliminate 322 positions at its East Hanover site by Oct. 2. That round was the fourth at East Hanover in 2026, bringing Novartis's layoff total there to 572 for the year, according to BioSpace.
Other large cuts from June through August include Mars Wrigley, which plans to close its Newark site and eliminate 307 jobs in October, and HelloFresh, which is shutting its Swedesboro operation and cutting 374 jobs by November.
JPMorgan Chase has filed five WARN notices in New Jersey in 2026, totaling about 541 layoffs at its Jersey City office. Spokesman Michael Fusco said in a July statement responding to the bank's WARN filings that the moves are "part of our regular management of the business."
New Jersey shed 25,000 jobs in July alone
The Bureau of Labor Statistics classified New Jersey as the only state with a statistically significant payroll decline in July 2026, reporting the state lost about 25,000 jobs. A preliminary BLS benchmark revision, however, estimated the survey-based payroll count may understate actual employment by about 27,600 jobs, according to NJ 21st.
The state's unemployment rate stood at 4.4 percent in July.
The August rate has not been released.
A separate BLS report covering March 2025 through March 2026 found employment fell in 10 of New Jersey's largest counties. Somerset County, which borders Union County, saw the largest drop at 2.5 percent. That report predates the summer layoff surge by three months; the next quarterly release, covering the second quarter of 2026, is scheduled for Dec. 2.
WARN notices are advance warnings required under federal and state law for large-scale layoffs. They do not mean all affected workers will lose their jobs immediately; some may be reassigned or offered relocation packages.
