What is the Massachusetts Workshare Program?

The WorkShare Program, run by the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance (formerly the DET), is a way to 'partially' layoff employees during a work slowdown, without having to let them go or shut your business down completely.

It allows a business to reduce staff hours as much as 60% instead of doing a full layoff. You pay your staff based on the hours they actually work but they also receive pro-rated unemployment checks to help cover the reduction in their regular wages. They DO NOT have to report to an unemployment office or show that they have been looking for other work each week, since they are still employed by you.

Your company can decide to have only certain 'units' or parts of its workforce participate (for example, you have a backlog of orders and need to keep the manufacturing section producing full-time but want to reduce sales staff hours for the next month), or can apply the program across the board.

Since you set up your own WorkShare Plan (within required guidelines), and can end participation at any time, it is very flexible. Once the plan has been established, you can administer it over the web. It is very quick and easy to do, generally only requiring that you enter the actual hours worked by each participant each pay period. Unemployment checks are delivered to your office and distributed with your regular payroll - employees do not have to pick them up at the local unemployment office.

Workshare payments count against your state unemployment account, but since you are only paying partial benefits, it does not impact you as much as a full layoff would. And since your staff is still employed, if someone quits over this, you may be able to argue that they left without cause and your account should not be charged for full benefits if they file an unemployment claim. NOTE - this is an assumption - I would love to hear back from an employer who's had this situation come up and find out what their experience was -

More information on the plan and application forms can be found at the the Massachusetts Dept. of Unemployment Assistance Workshare page of their web site.