Michigan to Cut 400 Unemployment Workers

What kind of a profession loses jobs at the economy gets better? If you guessed the ones who work in the unemployment office, then you guessed right. At least in the state of Michigan that is the case. The state is getting ready to get rid of a significant number of workers in its unemployment insurance office, put the workers, ironically, onto the unemployment line. The state is cutting back on about 400 workers, give or take, in two waves, each of which will qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

In this case the first round of the layoffs came on the 31^st of August when 179 of the workers were cut, in a move that probably did not surprise many of them since they were hired on as temporary employees. It is the second round of cuts, the one to come on September 28^th that will have a larger impact. About 225 of the regular employees at the office will also be given the boot from their jobs.

While no one enjoys the idea of a job loss the cut in unemployment workers is actually a positive sign. The workers are not longer needed because the state has had a significant decline in the number of people who are filing for unemployment since the peak of the recession three years ago.

Of course, these are not the only cuts being made to community services in the state of Michigan for those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in no time at all, “Southeastern Michigan Health Association is probably not a name you know much about, unless you live in the local area and you have a serious health condition… Well apparently the Southeastern Michigan Health Association is dealing with some fiscal issues, because they are getting ready to layoff 102 workers in order to set the budget to right. That is more than enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal laws… The job cuts are impacting just under twenty percent of the staff at the agency. These cuts are because of some serious cuts that the Detroit city major has made to his budget, and some of the funding cut goes to this agency.”

Other states however are not fairing so well. In the state of California the numbers have been rather grim when it comes to layoffs, with an estimated 10,000 civil servants getting the axe.