Lee County is a ‘job-seeker’ market
Unemployed workers choosing to opt out makes hiring hard
By CJ HADDAD - | Apr 14, 2021
Is employment opt-out making it hard to hire workers?
Although the unemployment rate is at just 4% throughout the county, experts and local businesses are finding it challenging to fill positions in a variety of fields.
Officials at CareerSource Southwest Florida are reporting low traffic at their facilities and speculate many individuals are not presently looking for work due to a combination of local and federal benefits, as well as lingering health concerns at the workplace.
“Even though we have a very low unemployment rate region-wide, the unemployment numbers do not take into account individuals who are not actively seeking employment,” said CareerSource Southwest Florida spokesperson Janeth Castrejon.
Michigan unemployment: Extended benefits will end this weekend as unemployment rate drops clickondetroit.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from clickondetroit.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A program that provided an additional 20 weeks of unemployment benefits in Michigan ends Saturday, the state s Unemployment Insurance Agency said Wednesday.
The agency notified claimants in early March that the program, called Extended Benefits, was ending, but didn t provide a timeline as to when benefits would expire.
But there is some good news for the 16,000 claimants who are receiving these benefits. They are likely eligible for benefits under two federal programs that were implemented late last month, Liza Estlund Olson, acting director of Michigan s UIA, said in a news release.
Those two programs are Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which extends benefits for those on regular state benefits, and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which offers benefits to those who normally wouldn t qualify for benefits, such as freelancers and contract workers. Benefits through those two programs are available in Michigan until Sept. 4.
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LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – Extended unemployment benefits in Michigan will stop at the end of this week.
State officials say the U.S. Department of Labor notified the Unemployment Insurance Agency that the extended benefits program will not be payable after the week ending April 17, 2021 because Michigan’s unemployment rate is down.
Those benefits are only eligible when the state’s total unemployment rate averages 6.5% or higher for three consecutive months. It provides an additional 13-20 weeks of benefits for those who have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits.
âFortunately, with the federal extensions that were implemented on March 27, claimants who were on the Extended Benefits program most likely will be able to receive benefits through other federal programs such as Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) or Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA),” UIA Acting Director Liza Estlund Olson said in a release.