Hi, I own a small business in California (we have three full time and three part time employees). We recently hired another part-time employee. The job was advertised as part time.
I have now received from the EDD an unemployment claim from this still-employed employee wanting to draw down my unemployment account to cover his benefits as a part-time employee who is not working full-time. I have read online that is legal and proper in California.
I go to great lengths to protect myself and my unemployment account. We have had dozens of part time employees who never filed for unemployment benefits. I personally held many part time jobs and never filed for unemployment at the same t.
My question: why would ANY business hire a part-time employee in California if this what could happen? What should I do differently next time?
Yes, those working part-time who fall between the various income thresholds can continue to collect benefits. The maximum benefit is calculated based on past wages; if you have paid this person wages in the past two quarters, and there has been some reason to recalculate the benefits, those wages will be included in the calculation, and your account will be drawn upon.
Well, the majority of those working part-time can’t create this situation. To file an original claim, an employee needs to be laid off or have his work hours reduced by his former employer. In order to affect your account, there needs to be an existing claim, it has to be eligible for extension, and you need to be paying enough to continue his eligibility, but not enough to make him go over his income limit. It’s unlikely, and it won’t last long; the fact is, it’s only the recent economic upheaval and the federal extension of UI benefits that’s left so many formerly well-compensated workers willing to accept low-paying work, and left them unemployed/underemployed for so long, AND still eligible for any benefits.
I may be missing something, but I think this guy’s gotta run out of benefits by the end of the year.
ETA: I forgot to mention that another reason this hasn’t happened before is that many workers don’t know that it can.
Perhaps (and most likely) this employee needs a full time paycheck to pay his or her bills.
Why is the claim not still being drawn from his or her previous employer? Is it normal to transfer the charges to his or her current employer? Can you offer the person full time? Does it really cost you or harm your business much?
If the guy is doing a good job, chalk it up to weird/shitty laws in the state you are in an treat him exactly the same as you would anybody else. I suppose in the future if you wanted to avoid this you would only hire somebody who currently has a full-time job. But that is probably short-sighted - hiring somebody who can do the best job has got to be worth more than whatever minor hit you take to your unemployment rates. Or at least it should be, or why are you hiring somebody in the first place ?
In December of 2012, all of California’s federal unemployment extensions will cease. Apparantly California doesn’t have enough unemployed to qualify, or something. O.o
As a currently unemployed person who’s been weighing the benefits of at least working part-time while I look for something that will pay more than gas to GET to the job and back, you’ve just given me another reason not to bother. Sounds like I wouldn’t get hired anyway, as long as I’m still drawing unemployment.
Might as well wait until January, when the gov’t won’t ding anyone employing the unemployed, because unemployment will be toast for those on extensions, and we can be properly chained to whatever min wage, part-time job is available.
Seriously, this sounds like such BS. The gov’t isn’t helping anyone at ALL with this.