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Part time work and unemployment

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We have an employee currently working part time for us. His hours fluctuate depending on our work load. Since he started working he has been filing for unemployment. It keeps getting denied, now we have a hearing because he has appealed the decisions. How can a person accept and work in a part time job and still be able to collect unemployment from us? This is taking place in Illinois if that helps.

Thanks

It seems likely that this employee is trying to pull a fast one. If that is true, you are likely to win the unemployment case on appeal. An Illinois employee would be entitled to unemployment benefits if he or she was working full time, and suddenly had their hours reduced to part time. However, that does not seem to be the case here. It appears that the employee always knew that he or she would not be full time, and that their hours would vary. Is it possible that the first few weeks the employee worked more? If so, he or she is probably telling the unemployment office that they were changed from full time to part time.

Presumably, you have documentation such as the employees original new hire paperwork that shows the employee was hired on a part time basis. That will go a long way towards supporting your claim, that he was never a full time employee.