It saddens me to see stories of companies and people that are struggling to survive due to this crisis. I’ve heard multiple stories of friends and family members that have been laid off recently due to the COVID crisis. I’m sure you’ve all seen the sudden 3.3M unemployment spike recently. Another stat that’s been floating around is that small businesses in the US had on average 27 days of cash without making any revenue. 

I spoke to a family member and he’s one of the managing partners of this healthcare clinic and he told me that he had to lay off his entire staff because he didn’t have enough money to pay them.

He gave his staff two options:

Option 1: Reduced hours and salary until the pandemic subsides

Option 2: Lay them off and they receive unemployment checks

The Employment Development Department (EDD) determines your weekly benefit and can qualify up to $450 max a week for up to 26 weeks.

Here’s the unemployment check calculator.

https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/UI-Calculator.htm

A lot of employees have done the math and realize that it’s better to collect the unemployment checks as opposed to working reduced hours. Furthermore, it also allows them to stay at home with their family to practice good social distancing. 

I’ve heard many stories of employers reaching out to their employees saying that this is a temporary layoff and they will have their jobs back once everything normalizes. This is scenario isn’t as bad as people think, and yes the unemployment is super high, but many people have jobs waiting for them once this is over. In the meantime, they have comfort in the fact that they still have some income to ride this pandemic out.

The true horror stories that I haven’t seen discussed widely, is employers assigning their employees to zero hour shifts instead of laying them off. In this scenario, the employee technically can’t apply for unemployment checks because they’re technically still employed. The EDD before providing you with unemployment benefits, they will contact your previous employer and verify that you’re truly unemployed. Your employer will simply say that you’re still employed but have scaled back on your hours until further notice. In this case, you don’t qualify for any unemployment benefits unless you negotiate with your employer to lay you off, but also ensure that there is a job available for you once they bring the hours back up.

In conclusion, there has been a significant increase in unemployment claims (about 3.3M applications), but I would be curious to know how many of those people will get paid out? How many people will be at the mercy of their employing hanging zero-hour assignment over their heads? At the same time, there are many positive cases where employers are understanding and have provided their staff options as they endure this difficult time with their families.

I’m especially pleased with employers that have publicly announced that they will not be laying off anyone during this difficult time especially if you can afford it.

I feel for the people that are deeply impacted and not receiving unemployment benefits. I plead their employers for making this transition as easy as possible for people if you can afford it. No one deserves to go through this with no support.