Labor & Employment Developments Blog

On March 15, Governor DeWine announced that Ohio will broaden the requirements to qualify for the state’s unemployment insurance policy. The following changes are expected to be made through an executive order:

• Individuals quarantined by a health professional or by their employer will be considered ‘unemployed’ and will not be required to actively seek work to qualify for unemployment benefits
  • Companies that have determined it necessary to temporarily shut down operations will also be eligible to seek unemployment
• The one-week waiting period prior to payment will be waived
• The penalty for late reporting and payments for the next quarter will be waived for employers impacted by staff availability

The Order is also expected to ‘mutualize’ the costs for these additional benefits. We are actively monitoring for issuance of regulations to clarify what this will mean for employers. 

The state’s unemployment insurance will continue to pay 50% of an individual’s base weekly pay, up to a maximum weekly benefit as determined by dependency classification:

Source: https://unemployment.ohio.gov/PDF/HowOhioUCBenefitsAreCalculated.pdf 

An update will follow once the Executive Order is issued.