How Work Sharing Saves Labor Costs and Confronts Uncertainty
“Work sharing” allows employers to reduce employee wages or hours instead of doing a layoff or furlough by reducing the hours of retained employees subject to a specific plan created by the employer. Work sharing enables employees to keep their jobs while simultaneously receiving unemployment benefits to supplement the lost income. At present, 27 states have enacted work sharing programs (oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/docs/stc_fact_sheet.pdf), though the requirements and benefits vary from state to state.
What is work sharing? Work sharing, also called “short-term compensation,” should not be confused with job sharing, which allows two part-time employees to share one full-time job. Instead, “work sharing” refers to cutting workers’ hours to avoid cutting workers’ jobs, effectively sharing the burden across employees when an employer has to scale back labor costs due to financial pressures, such as those presented by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Reducing hours instead of reducing headcount saves money, saves morale, and saves the maximum number of employees for when business levels later return to pre-emergency levels.
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