Employers eligible for special incentive to avoid layoffs

In 1983, Washington created the Shared-Work Program which allowed employers to reduce their workers hours for a temporary amount of time and still allow employees to claim partial unemployment benefits. This allowed the employees to have the same amount of income as full-time work while working part-time, while employers were allowed to keep their workers on the payrolls while still reducing cost.

This program worked its magic again during the 2008 Recession, and Congress was impressed by it during this time that in 2012 it passed legislation to encourage other states to create similar programs. Employers in Washington are able to participate in this layoff-avoidance programrun by the Employment Security Departmentand can participate through June of 2015 with almost no effect on their unemployment taxes.

For an incentive, Congress has offered to cover most of the shared-work costs for three years, from July of 2012 to June of 2015 with little to no effect on employers unemployment taxes. The federal government will reimburse Washington state 100 per cent for shared-work benefits from July to September 2012. However, because of the federal sequester, 94.9 percent of benefits have been reimbursed since October 2012.

Washington has made minor changes in state law to make more employers in the state eligible for the program. The first is that the participating employers must have two or more employees, as opposed to the previous rule of one or more employees. The second change is employers can enroll part-time employees, in contrast to only full-time employees. The un-changed qualifications are both public and private-sector employees can participate; employee hours must be cut by at least 10 percent but no more than 50 percent; and an employer can enroll as many of its employees as it wants.

To learn more, visit this link to the Employment Security Departments website: https://www.esd.wa.gov/uibenefits/faq/shared-work.php