You may be eligible for unemployment benefits if your employer temporarily laid you off or reduced your hours. You may qualify for standby or we may consider you partially unemployed. You would not have to meet the job search requirements.
Partial unemployment
If you are partially unemployed or furloughed, you may apply for unemployment benefits. Also, you will not have to meet the job search requirements.
We may consider you partially unemployed if all the following are true:
- You expect to return to full time work for your employer within four months.
- Your employer hired you to work full time.
- Your employer reduced your hours each week by no more than 60%.
Be sure you report any work you do and pay you earn for each week you claim benefits. While partially unemployed, whether you are eligible for benefits each week depends on how much you earn each week from your employer.
For example, we often do not consider full-time workers working 1 less day each week partially unemployed. Their weekly pay is not reduced enough. This is because we determine unemployment benefits on a weekly basis.
Standby
Being "on standby" means that you:
- Are temporarily unemployed because your employer did not have work for you.
- Have a probable date you will return to work to your previous job or will start a new one.
- Don't have to look for work while you receive unemployment benefits, until your standby status ends.
Employers and workers: Read more about standby.