So you learn things when you work for the Unemployment Office.
One of the things you learn, although it seems like common sense, is that when you are collecting Unemployment Insurance from the State of New York (and other states as well), you are expected to be job-hunting and to be available to take a job if an appropriate one comes up.
(They do have some limits on how low the pay is on those jobs you must apply for/take).
Trouble is, some folks up here – and I would assume in other one-season tourist areas – get used to working April to October, banking money and collecting all winter.
Technically, we call this “fraud.” But a lot of people do it. Usually the investigations start only when someone’s collecting under a couple of names or are working and collecting. The state frowns upon those things.
All the state asks is that you make three job contacts a week and go to any interview they send you on. (That doesn’t not happen often in this economy.)
Like so many folks I used to see on the other side of the table, this is the first time I have actually been laid off. I was without a full-time job for a 2 ½ months when we first moved up here.
Not a lot of job-searching today, as we’d already had something planned. Networking, that’ll be it. Networking.
"Working" Press 