Unemployment insurance: work sharing plans.

Existing law provides for the payment of unemployment compensation benefits to eligible persons who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Existing law deems an employee unemployed in any week if the employee works less than their usual weekly hours of work for the employee's regular employer as the result of the employer's participation in a work sharing plan that meets specified requirements and has been approved by the Director of Employment Development, pursuant to which the employer, in lieu of layoff, reduces employment and stabilizes the workforce. Existing law requires an employer who wishes to participate in the work sharing program to submit to the director a signed, written work sharing plan application form that meets specified requirements. This bill, until January 1, 2024, would create an alternative process for the submission and approval of employer work sharing plan applications. The bill would require the Director of Employment Development to accept an application to participate in, or renew participation in, the work sharing program that is submitted electronically and would require the Employment Development Department to create a portal on its internet website for the provision and receipt of these applications. For work sharing plan applications submitted by eligible employers between September 15, 2020, and September 1, 2023, the bill would require that, upon approval by the director, they be deemed approved for one year, except as specified. The bill would require the department to mail to an eligible employer a claim packet for each participating employee within 5 business days following approval of the application. The bill would require the department to make online claim forms available to the approved employer for each participating employee within five business days following approval of the application if an employer submitted its work sharing plan application online. Upon completion of the documents in the claim packet, the department would establish an unemployment insurance claim pursuant to applicable requirements. Among other things, the bill would require participating employers and employees to meet the required unemployment insurance claim filing and weekly certification requirements and for employers to be responsible for the completeness and integrity of work sharing certification forms issued to participating employees. The bill would require that these provisions be implemented consistently with the requirements of federal law. This bill would also authorize the Employment Development Department to collaborate with the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development and the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank to, among other things, develop and implement strategic outreach to increase participation by employers in the work sharing program described above. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.