diff --git a/plugins/org.eclipse.elk.alg.layered/src/org/eclipse/elk/alg/layered/intermediate/unzipping/AlternatingLayerUnzipper.java b/plugins/org.eclipse.elk.alg.layered/src/org/eclipse/elk/alg/layered/intermediate/unzipping/AlternatingLayerUnzipper.java
index f584d415c..6556c95fb 100644
--- a/plugins/org.eclipse.elk.alg.layered/src/org/eclipse/elk/alg/layered/intermediate/unzipping/AlternatingLayerUnzipper.java
+++ b/plugins/org.eclipse.elk.alg.layered/src/org/eclipse/elk/alg/layered/intermediate/unzipping/AlternatingLayerUnzipper.java
@@ -96,10 +96,10 @@ public void process (LGraph graph, IElkProgressMonitor progressMonitor) {
                 
             }
             
-            // only split if there are more nodes than the resulting sub-layers
+            // only split if there enough nodes to fill the resulting sub-layers
             // an alternative would be to reduce N for this layer, this may or may
             // not be desirable
-            if (graph.getLayers().get(i).getNodes().size() > N) {
+            if (graph.getLayers().get(i).getNodes().size() >= N) {
                 
                 List<Layer> subLayers = new ArrayList<>();
                 // add current layer as first sub-layer