Amid layoff season, contractors dread new work-search rules

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New work-search requirements have various construction executives worried that they could lose some of their most valued employees to other companies when winter weather makes outdoor work next to impossible.

State officials in June modified the rules governing how often laid-off workers have to look for new jobs within a given week in order to continue receiving unemployment benefits. Along with increasing the required number of weekly searches from two to four, the changes also cut back the length of waiver periods that allow employees to forgo the searches as long as they can say that their former employer plans to hire them back.

Previously, laid-off workers had been able to obtain waivers that let them continue receiving unemployment benefits for an entire year without having to search for other jobs. Since June, though, the exemptions have been limited to an initial period of eight weeks. An extension of four weeks can be obtained, but only after a former employer has directly told state officials of plans to hire the ex-employee back before the additional waiver period expires.

Rob Nelson, human resources safety director at Haas Sons Inc., of Thorp, said 12 weeks is simply too short of an exemption window for many construction companies. He said Haas Sons, which does a lot of sewer and road construction, generally starts laying employees off near the start of December and many times won’t call them back until the end of March.

Nelson said a 20-week waiver would be better aligned with the realities of seasonal construction work. With the shorter exemption period, his chief fear is that workers who are forced to start looking for work after the 12-weeks waiver has expired will find they like their new jobs better.

Nelson said the industry’s current labor shortage is already making it hard to recruit qualified employees.

“And when I call these guys back, all of sudden 10 to 15 people say, ‘We are going to stay where we are working now,’” Nelson said. “And I’ve already got my bids and jobs and then I’m not sure if I’ll have the workers.”

John Mielke, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin, said it’s a problem that many contractors are just starting to recognize as many prepare for the coming winter by reducing their workforces.

“I am getting a lot of phone calls about it,” he said.

The dilemma seems to be worse for the nonunion side of the industry, from which the ABC draws most of its members. Because many construction unions run hiring halls that basically function as recruiting services, they are often considered under state law as automatically meeting the work-search requirements.

Mielke, who sits on a panel that advises state lawmakers on unemployment policies, said other officials are aware of the predicament. Now the trouble becomes devising a solution that protects contractors’ interests while still fulfilling state officials’ original goal of conserving money in the state’s unemployment fund.

Since the recent recession caused the unemployment insurance fund to go more than $1.7 billion into the red, state officials have been especially intent on finding ways to conserve benefits money. Speaking of the reduction in the waiver period, a spokesman of the state’s Department of Workforce Development said in June that, “The changes reaffirm (unemployment benefits) as a short-term assistance program that transitions claimants to employment quickly.”

Mielke said he has sympathy for those goals. What state officials should recognize, though, is that contractors already have every reason to want their former workers back on the job as quickly as possible.

“Employers want their employees to be working,” he said. “They don’t make their profits from when their workers are all laid off for the winter.” Follow @TDR_WLJDan