The most a laid-off railroad worker can collect in unemployment benefits is expected to climb by about 61 percent over the next decade. The Railroad Retirement Board says maximum benefit rates are projected to go from $99 in 2025 to $159 in 2036, according to its September 2026 question-and-answer release on its annual financial reports.…

Azenta, a life-sciences company, plans to close three laboratories in North America and cut jobs, and it has set aside about $3 million for the people who lose them. The company’s board approved the plan on Oct. 5, 2026, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The $3 million covers employee severance…

The storage-door maker Janus International is turning one of its Indiana manufacturing plants into a distribution center, part of a three-round restructuring that the company puts at about $5.6 million in charges. Janus disclosed the plan in a federal filing dated Sept. 25, 2026. The filing does not say how many workers are affected, or…

Starbucks shut two Philadelphia cafes in late September, and Pennsylvania’s October list of mass-layoff notices shows 18 workers affected, with an effective date of Dec. 6, 2026. The stores are at 2201 South Street and 1018 North Second Street. The company announced the closings on Sept. 24 as part of a cut of about 250…

Grunt Style, the San Antonio military-themed apparel company, is closing its Broadway store in the city, and 19 retail workers will lose their jobs by Nov. 30. The San Antonio Report says 11 of the 19 work full time. The company is shutting stores in other states, too. The Broadway store The report says Grunt…

Fewer people filed for the first time for unemployment benefits last week, and the count landed under 200,000 again. The Labor Department reported Thursday, Oct. 8, that initial claims were 197,000 in the week ending Oct. 3, down 2,000 from the prior week’s revised 199,000, according to its weekly claims release. The figure is seasonally…

The Labor Department’s inspector general flagged $45.6 billion in unemployment benefits as potentially fraudulent, and a new federal rule built on that number will open state jobless-claim files to federal investigators. The figure comes from a September 21, 2022 alert memo signed by Carolyn R. Hantz, the inspector general’s Assistant Inspector General for Audit. It…

Starting November 16, state unemployment offices will have to hand over confidential jobless-claims records to federal officials who audit the program, instead of doing so only when they choose to. The Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration issued the final rule in September. It says the change is meant to hold states accountable for finding…

The federal minimum wage for workers on older government contracts goes up to $14.05 an hour on January 6, 2027. The Labor Department announced the new rate on October 8, and it is $0.40 more than the $13.65 now in effect. The higher $17.75 floor that once covered newer federal contracts is gone, because President…

The Department of Homeland Security has proposed charging schools $70,000 for each foreign student’s first round of Optional Practical Training, the work program known as OPT, and $30,000 for each later round. The proposal is in a rule published in the Federal Register on Oct. 8. It is only a proposal, and DHS is taking…