ALBUQUERQUE – Employees in New Mexico who have been furloughed or laid off will not be able to continue their unemployment benefits without a valid and acceptable reason once they are called back to work by employers, state officials said.
The state Department of Workforce Solutions Secretary Bill McCamley said furloughed employees who are called back by their employers must provide “good cause” for not returning to work and continuing to receive unemployment benefits instead, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
“Unless there’s a good cause, you are generally not allowed to refuse that call back to work,” McCamley said. “Just because you might be getting more money on unemployment than your job, that’s not ‘good cause.’”
The announcement came as the state has started to reduce restrictions on shuttered business amid the coronavirus pandemic.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover.
The state is working on a way for employers to report COVID-19-related workforce violations, McCamley said. The department is also working with the state Department of Health to determine a list of accepted conditions.
“If you’re not going to go back, you have to prove to us that there was a very serious condition that stopped you from going back,” he said, adding that certain underlying health issues and concerns about unsafe working conditions would qualify.
Some workers have found that their base unemployment rate and the extra $600-weekly check from the government amounts to more than they would make returning to work, an issue employers have been faced with.
“A lot of them are making double (what they made working), some are making triple,” said Myra Ghattas, owner of Slate Street Cafe, Slate at the Museum and Sixty-Six Acres restaurants in Albuquerque. Ghattas has considered returning her business loan because of the payroll requirements and other issues.
She added: “It makes it very difficult for me to bring them back on payroll because they have to take a substantial pay cut. ... That puts us in a tricky situation because we’re hurting our employees.”
