Kirkland, WA Tech Firm to Lay Off Over 3,500 Workers Permanently

According to a WARN Alert (Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification) from the WA State Employment Security Department (ESD), a Kirkland, WA firm plan to get go a lot of workers. This is the largest WARN Alert issued by the state in over six months.

RaterLabs is a subsidiary of a worldwide company called Appen

Appen is a company that deals in AI, and other digital and tech services. Based out of Australia, the company recently suffered a loss of a major contract with Alphabet Inc, or Google.

RaterLabs was purchased by Appen, after being founded in CA in 2017. RaterLabs employees are called 'raters,' and they provide feedback on the quality and relevance of ads and other content on social media sites.

They also conduct tests and examine specific apps, then give them a rating (good, medium, bad etc). These remote workers are assigned these projects, then are paid upon completion.

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The Kirkland, WA arm of RaterLabs employs the 3,657 soon to be laid off remote workers, who perform these tasks.  Their Pacific Northwest Corporate Center is located in Kirkland.

The WARN Alert did not indicate if that facility will close, but ESD said all the remote workers employed by the company will begin to go as of April 6th. of this year. WARN Alerts are required to only list layoffs that occur in WA state, despite all the workers being remote, they are presumed to all be working somewhere in WA state.