Chapter 13 Summary

Unemployment Insurance
Concept:
Unemployment insurances have four objectives to minimize the burden which goes along with being laid off. It provides payments to help with the lost income during the involuntary unemployment, and helps find new jobs. This money given to the unemployed comes through a unemployment tax paid by the employer and with each application filed against the employer the tax increases, giving the employer the incentive to not have reduction in work force. Unemployment insurance has been left by the federal government to be determined on a state by state base creating their own programs. No state imposes the same tax rate on every employer in the state. Employers with a history of high layoffs pay a much higher tax and those business’ with a lower rate pay a much smaller fraction og what the larger company pays. Careful planning by the human resource manager can minimize layoffs and keep their unemployment tax favorable. To be eligible for the benefits a worker must be actively seeking work, available to work full time, and the person was not let go or fired for misconduct and did not quit, so in other words was favorably let go. If these conditions are met they will receive about half of their wage for a period of 26 weeks or six months while seeking other work.
Emotional Hook:
As hard as it can be for a person to be let go from a job it is a comfort to be able to receive money in replacement for lost income to help while looking for work.
Key Points:
A key point I found interesting is that as an organization does layoffs they are in a sense penalized for it and in it ends up costing the company more money as more unemployment applications are filed against them. This is a very good idea to help reduce layoffs when unnecessary.
Facilitative Question:What is a human resource manager’s role in preventing layoffs in order to keep the company from paying a higher tax?