Layoffs and new executives as buying signals

Both are public records with a date, a company and a source you can link to. Neither is a rumor or a guess.

A company that is closing a site or changing its leaders may also be looking again at its suppliers, its tools and its hiring. That makes the record a reason to reach out, and a better one than a cold list.

Treat each record as a reason to start a conversation, not as proof of what the company will do next.

The federal WARN Act helps ensure advance notice of qualified plant closings and mass layoffs. An employer it covers must give written notice 60 days before the closing or layoff, to the workers or their representative, to the state and to the local government.

The Act covers employers with 100 or more employees, not counting part-time employees. Under the Act, a plant closing or a mass layoff means an employment loss for at least 50 employees at a single site, so a notice points to a sizable change at one place.

A notice tells you the employer, the place and a planned date, and often the number of workers. It does not give the reason, and it does not tell you that the layoff happened as planned.

For a recruiting team, a notice names a place where people may soon look for new jobs. For a sales team, it is a sign the company is changing how it works at that site.

Form 8-K is a current report that companies file with the SEC when certain events take place, promptly, rather than waiting for their next quarterly or annual report. Most 8-K reports are due within four business days of the event.

Item 5.02 reports when a director or a top officer leaves or is appointed: the chief executive, the president, the chief financial officer, the chief accounting officer, the chief operating officer, a person in a similar role or a named executive officer. For a new officer, the company gives the name, the position and the date of the appointment.

It does not cover every manager who joins or leaves, and a company that plans to announce a new officer in some other way may wait to file until the day of that announcement.

A new leader is a natural time to introduce yourself. A leader who leaves may also mean a seat to fill, which matters to a recruiting team.

Both companies here are invented, to show how a team might use a record.

Kestrine Retail, an invented company, files a WARN notice for a closing at one of its sites. A recruiting firm sees the notice on Kestrine Retail's company page and offers to help the workers who are leaving find new jobs with its clients.

Quillmark Software, another invented company, files an 8-K under Item 5.02 that names a new chief financial officer. A vendor of finance software reads the filing on sec.gov, notes the date of the appointment and writes to the new officer to introduce itself.

Every company page has a Watch company button. A free account watches up to 5 companies, and its weekly digest email lists the new records at the companies you watch.

Paid plans watch more companies and tell you sooner. Starter sends a daily alert email for one event type, Layoffs or Leadership, with filters by state, sector and role. Pro covers every event type with instant alerts. Team is Pro for 5 seats, with shared watchlists.

We check the state WARN lists once a day, and the SEC's EDGAR system for new 8-K filings every 10 minutes, from 6 am to 10 pm ET on business days. Every record links to its source. The pricing page has the plans and their prices.