Lower Paying Employers can Report Employees who Prefer Unemployment
Boy, that headline was a real tongue-twister.
I, like many of you, know quite a few friends who have openly stated their desire to remain on unemployment because the pay is greater than what they would receive if they were working.
I can't fault them for that, you have to always look out for yourselves and those who depend on you, and most people would probably choose to not work and make more money than if they were working.
Now, however, employers and co-workers can report those who refuse to come back to work, in order to keep making more while collecting unemployment.
The Louisiana Workforce Commission has released a tool which provides a way to report employees who choose to not come back to work. For those wondering, typically if you file for unemployment in the state of Louisiana, you would only be eligible for $247 weekly. However, due to COVID-19, many are eligible for an extra $600 in federal unemployment. That, naturally, makes it hard for lower paying employers to compete.
Assistant Secretary with LWC Robert Wooley describes the reporting process by saying, "Once a report is filed, we then have to call the employee to see if the story of the employer and employee match up or to see if maybe even the employee may qualify for a federal program called PUA."
"PUA", of course, stands for "Pandemic Unemployment Assistance".
The tool launched this week and Wooley says employers are already using it. He says, "It hasn’t been an overwhelming number that we’ve received, but we have gotten some.”