{"id":11566,"date":"2012-08-31T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T14:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=11566"},"modified":"2012-08-31T10:38:47","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T14:38:47","slug":"no-more-paid-vacation-for-the-seasonally-employed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/08\/31\/no-more-paid-vacation-for-the-seasonally-employed\/","title":{"rendered":"No More ‘Paid Vacation’ For The Seasonally Employed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Vladimer Shioshvili<\/p>

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Starting this fall, seasonal workers in New Hampshire will find a new set of rules when they apply for unemployment benefits.\u00a0 Since 2002, seasonal workers who were rehired each year by the same employer have been able to collect unemployment benefits during the off-season without looking for other work. According to a New Hampshire Employment Security report<\/a>, that 2002 exemption was based on complaints from year-round employers in the state who felt that \u201cthe work search requirement amounted to a complete waste of their time accepting applications from seasonal workers who had no intention of remaining employed with them once the seasonal employer recalled them to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as the state worries about the solvency of their unemployment trust fund \u2013 the account into which all unemployment taxes are paid, and all benefits are paid out of \u2013 that kind of benefit is looking more and more like \u201ca 16 week paid vacation\u201d to Department of Employment Security employees like Unemployment Compensation Bureau director, Dianne Carpenter.<\/p>\n

Although better off than most states, Carpenter says, New Hampshire\u2019s trust fund was completely depleted at the height of the recession, when the state was paying out roughly $510,000 to about 40,000 people every week.\u00a0 Eventually the state had to borrow funds from the federal government to keep up \u2013 which meant paying interest on the loan.\u00a0 Now, the trust fund is at a healthier $180 million. But \u201cto be able to weather the next recession,\u201d Carpenter says, \u201cwe have to build it up to $350 or $400 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carpenter and the DES are hoping the new policies will help them reach that goal — with more taxes flowing into the trust fund, and fewer benefits paid out. But when other states’ seasonal employment rules changed earlier this year, things didn’t go over so smoothly. According to WTOC<\/a> in Savannah, GA, the Teamsters Union there rallied and protested all summer, ultimately resulting in a U.S. Department of Labor reversal of the state\u2019s changes.<\/p>\n

New Hampshire\u2019s seasonal unemployment rules go into effect on October 7.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting this fall, seasonal workers in New Hampshire will find a new set of rules when they apply for unemployment benefits.\u00a0 Since 2002, seasonal workers who were rehired each year by the same employer have been able to collect unemployment benefits during the off-season without looking for other work. According to a New Hampshire Employment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":11567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54,51,53],"tags":[369,142,368,130],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11572,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11566\/revisions\/11572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}