SB 1472: Expanding Work Share

No. of Jobs

N/A

Category

Expanding jobs in the new economy

Proposal

This bill will promote the Work Share program at EDD.

Summary

This bill will require the Employment Development Department to develop and implement a more aggressive outreach plan for the existing Work Share program and establish a data collection process for accurate tracking and reporting.

Background

In 1978, California became the first state to implement a “work-share” program to allow both employers and employees more flexibility and security in difficult economic situations.

In times of economic downturn, companies where at least 10 percent of the work force is affected by reduction in work hours or salary may retain these employees, enabling companies to ramp up quickly again when the economy recovers. The employees see their salary made whole by Unemployment Insurance funds through the Economic Development Department.

Without this program, employees would simply be laid off, relying entirely upon unemployment benefits. Through this program, employers can retain highly trained employees, workers are assisted financially, and the costs to the UI fund are reduced.

Unfortunately, only a fraction of California businesses are participating in the program. EDD needs to develop and implement more aggressive outreach, while collecting data to analyze the program’s effectiveness.

After the state of New York heavily marketed a version of this program last year, businesses using Shared Work increased 557 percent and a greater number of workers needed only partial unemployment benefits.