Human Resource Blog

Offer to Rehire at a lesser rate.

Our company is located in Tennessee. Two employees were laid off due to lack of work and were told they would be eligible for rehire. Both are receiving unemployment compensation. A position, equivilant to their prior job, is now available at another business location. Two questions: 1. If former employee declines offer for re-hire, does that relieve the company for future offers? 2. Do we have to offer same wages they were making for new position?

Here is the good news: you can offer one or both of these employees the new job, at  the new location, at a lower rate. However, if they decline, they may still qualify for unemployment benefits.

There is no law that an employer has to recall a laid-off worker, ever. You could have exactly the same job at exactly the same location and salary, and decide to hire a new employee instead of recalling laid-off workers. Companies recall workers because it saves time training, and because a worker who refuses a recall to exactly the same job and salary usually does not qualify for continued unemployment benefits. (The assumption is that at that point, the employee has quit.)

However, an employee who is offered a job at a lower salary, at another location, has not been recalled. They have been offered a different job. And workers can generally decline a different job without losing unemployment benefits.