Human Resource Blog

Reduced hours U/C claim

We have an employee who was full time and had her hours reduced. However in calculating how much unemployment she can receive we want to ensure that her attendance record is included because the majority of her actually reduced earnings is due to her failure to report to work for scheduled hours not reduced hours. In fact since she filed for unemployment in one week she already called off for two days, when she was scheduled for four, and when asked to work an extra day she said no. Will that have an effect our on contesting her U/C?

Yes, you should certainly contest this claim on the grounds that you had an additional 24 hours of work available for this employee during the week, and she declined to work it. Generally speaking, an employee does not qualify for unemployment benefits when she is absent from work, or chooses not to work.

You are being extremely generous by asking this employee to work an additional shift and allowing her to decline. Many employers would simply change the schedule, and discipline the employee if she did not show up.

Nevertheless, you should continue to keep written records of the shifts available for this employee vs. the shifts she works.