Some workers in the construction industry could see changes in their unemployment benefits from New Hampshire’s unemployment system.
An advisory committee created by the legislature is considering recommending changing how some seasonal workers get unemployment.
And the members could also suggest altering how much their employers pay to the state’s unemployment fund.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s David Darman has more.
Road crews from Continental Paving are working on a few of Concord’s roads when the rain lets up.
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A worker named Kevin says he’s worked for the company for a few years.
And he says he’s collected unemployment money during the winter.
I take it for about three months. I usually get about 250 a week. Why do that instead of look for a job? ‘cause I’m coming back to work here. So nobody would hire me for three months. It would be a waste of their time.
Under state law, paving workers and others who have a firm call back date from their employer can collect unemployment, without looking for another job.
That differs from most laid off workers, who must actively seek work while they collect unemployment benefits.
The head of the state’s Unemployment trust fund says the seasonal layoffs costs the state a lot of money every year.
Commissioner Richard Brothers says that because the firms pay less to the fund than the state pays out to the laid off employees.
Well even just the top companies that are doing it the larger companies that are doing it, it gets to be about 10 million dollars a year coming out of the trust fund. And that’s a substantial amount for New Hampshire’s trust fund.
In total, the state unemployment fund has about 210 million dollars in it this month.
An advisory committee is looking at trying to beef that up by suggesting changes to how the benefit works for road crew employees.
Commissioner Brothers says one option would only allow workers to collect unemployment in their busy season.
…if they were laid off in april, june, july, august they’d be eligible to collect unemployment. But if they were laid off in January, February or march or any portion of those months, they would not be eligible to collect unemployment. And that’s just one method I know other states have looked at.
The committee is also considering making companies that regularly have seasonal layoffs pay more into the system.
Right now they pay about 520 dollars a year on each employee’s first 8,000 dollars of earnings.
Continental Paving president Mike Charbonneau says he’s heard those options and thinks higher fees would be acceptable.
I don’t think anyone in the construction industry would mind paying a little bit more but to ‘liminate those people from collecting unemployment would be catastrophic to the industry and the people. its always been done this way and everybody’s kinda got that system ….
Despite Continental’s position, the advisory committee has so far held off on making a recommendation to raise rates or to close the loophole for laid off employees.
Commissioner Brothers might be holding members back, since he has said he wants to hold the line on employer rates.
New Hampshire has the second lowest employer unemployment insurance rates in the country behind South Dakota.
The commissioner doesn’t want to lose that position, even though in this economy, the unemployment fund is being depleted faster than it has in years.
