All Articles Tagged "unemployment insurance"
Surviving Job Cuts: A Toolkit for Managers and Employees
Image: iStockphoto
Contrary to common belief, companies generally don’t like to conduct layoffs. In fact, many managers recoil at the thought of having to call an employee into their office and hand them a pink slip. Nevertheless, layoffs occur for a variety of reasons, regardless of the size of the firm. Just yesterday, Google announced that it was slashing its payroll by 4,000 jobs, three short months after it bought Motorola Mobility. News of the layoffs sent Google’s stock up to $660.01 by the close of trading on Monday, a 2.8 percent increase. What the announcement won’t do is make the process of conducting layoffs easier for managers or staffers.
After handling layoffs for more than a decade as a human resource specialist, I have learned that there are steps you — as a business owner, manager, or HR specialist — can take to help your employees navigate the rugged terrain of company downsizing. It doesn’t take the sting out of having to fire people, but you and your employees benefit when you include the steps you will take during company downsizing in written company termination policies. As an employee, knowing what questions to ask about these policies if they’re not presented to you in writing is a good skill to have. Types of information to include in termination policies are:
- Severance pay. Some companies pay employees a certain number of weeks for each year they worked at the firm. For example, you could pay employees three weeks of severance for each year they worked at your firm.
- Bonus and stock information. Depending on the economy and the financial health of your company, these payment calculations can change. Collaboration between the finance, compensation and benefits managers will bring about a fair and manageable calculation.
- Vacation and Unused Time Off. State how paid and unpaid time off, including vacation and personal leave, will be handled should an employee be laid off.
- Communication procedures. Identify who will communicate layoffs to impacted employees, such as a human resource manager or an employee’s supervisor. Regardless of who informs an employee, it should be communicated early enough to comply with state notification laws in jurisdictions where your business operates.
- Outplacement services. If your company offers outplacement services (resume writing, job search tools, etc.), decide on the duration.
- Most importantly, treat employees equitably and with respect. Managers should be trained by HR professionals on how to communicate the message and respond to employee inquiries.
Vision, focus, self-confidence and a positive attitude can help employees to navigate the changes that a layoff can bring into their lives. If it happens to you, you may even respond to a layoff by starting your own business.
Should you start your own business and hire other workers, you may find yourself on the other side of the table during economic downshifts. When this occurs, remember what it was like for you when you were an employee being cut. After all, the way you treat workers may be reflected in the way you treat customers. Treat employees with the respect you’d desire and you can keep top talent from walking out the door, allowing your company to rebound and grow over the coming months and years.
Rhonda Campbell, an East Coast journalist, is the owner of Off The Shelf radio and publisher of Long Walk Up and Love Pour Over Me.
Unemployment Insurance Extended
(AJC) — More than 22,000 Georgians who were in danger of losing extended unemployment benefits beginning in June will continue to receive them thanks to last-minute action by the Legislature. ”There was some opposition, but we’ve done the right things for Georgians,” said Sen. Hardie Davis, D-Augusta. Davis and a bipartisan group of legislators got the work done to save the benefits less than 40 minutes before the General Assembly closed shop for the session Thursday. Legislators had failed to tweak Georgia law to match federal eligibility guidelines for long-term unemployment, and no bill was introduced to do so during this session. There was some opposition to the extension from Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons.
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Underemployed? File for Benefits
(Bankrate) — If you’ve been fired or laid off, there’s state unemployment insurance to fall back on. If you’re injured on the job, there’s workers’ compensation, or even private disability insurance if you have a policy. But what if you are one of the millions of Americans — nearly one in five of us (18.6 percent) according to the latest Gallup numbers — who are underemployed, defined as still drawing income from reduced hours or part-time work? Depending on where you live, you may qualify for partial underemployment or work-share benefits, little-known state programs that can help bridge the gap between what you’re making now and what you used to make.
New Unemployment Extension Bill Introduced by Black Caucus
Obama Defends Tax Deal, but His Party Stays Hostile
(New York Times) — President Obama on Tuesday strongly defended his tax cut deal with Congressional Republicans against intense criticism from his own party, insisting it was “a good deal for the American people.” Struggling to ensure that the package would win approval, the White House deployed Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Capitol Hill in a bid to allay the concerns of Senate Democrats. Mr. Obama also held a news conference where, with uncharacteristic emotion, he suggested that liberals were unrealistic about what they could achieve in Washington and also slammed Republicans, at one point comparing them to hostage-takers. “I’ve said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts,” Mr. Obama said. “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.”
Program Uses Job-Loss Coverage to Lure Home Buyers
(AP) — With job-loss fears keeping many on the housingmarket’s sidelines, California’s real estate agents’ association has devised a scheme that uses unemployment insurance to lure wavering buyers into the fray. The California Association of Realtors program allows home sellers to fund insurance plans that pay buyers up to $1,500 a month toward their mortgages for six months if they’re laid off from their jobs. The so-called Home Payment Protection Program is a nod toward the role job concerns are playing in the housing market, especially in high-unemployment states such as California, where 12.4 percent of the population remains without work.
Aid Approved For The Unemployed: Benefits Extended Again
Senate Democrats have just broken a Republican filibuster. For the past few months, Senator Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans were blocking a bill to extend unemployment benefits to nearly two million Americans who have been without a job for six months or longer. Benefits were either about to run out or were exhausted, and it now appears that they are going to be extended through November.
Fund Debt Fans Fears of Spike in Taxes
(WSJ) – New York’s unemployment-insurance system is borrowing money from the federal government at an explosive pace—sinking $1 billion deeper into debt since the beginning of the year—and that has businesses bracing for a sharp increase in taxes.
As New York continues to shed private-sector jobs, the fund that pays unemployment claims is now $3.2 billion in the hole, the largest deficit in the nation after Michigan and California.
Jobless Claims in Another Surprise Surge
(CNNMoney.com) — The number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance for the first time jumped for the second week in a row, according to government data released Thursday.
There were 484,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended April 10, up 24,000 from an unrevised 460,000 the previous week, according to the Labor Department’s weekly report.
Unemployment Will Stay High Through 2011: IMF
(CNBC.com) – Many advanced economies will face high unemployment through 2011 even though job growth will return this year, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
In its initial chapters of the World Economic Outlook, the IMF said combating unemployment was a key policy challenge as the global economy emerges from the worst recession since World War Two.
It will release the full report next week.
“The nature of the recent recession in several advanced economies weighs against unemployment moderating any time soon,” the Fund said.
