Yearlong unemployment benefits running out for many
Apr. 11—ATLANTA — Although businesses are starting to return to full capacity as more individuals receive vaccinations, many Georgians are still out of work due to the pandemic.
Last year at this time, almost 400,000 individuals filed an unemployment insurance (UI) claim, and those claimants are now reaching the end of their benefit year. Those who filed an individual claim and have reached the end of the 52-week period allowed for benefits will need to refile a claim to re-open his/her benefit year reporting any additional work history, including temporary, part-time, self-employment, or W-2 work. Once the new regular UI claim is processed, claimants who are unable to establish a valid regular UI claim will be placed back into the appropriate federal CARES Act program for benefits to continue.
If a claimant's employer is filing an employer-filed claim on his/her behalf and he/she reaches the end of the 52-week period, the benefit year will renew the following week when the employer requests a weekly payment for the employee.
"This was the week last year where we saw the biggest spike in UI claims," state Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said. "The increase in claims this year is not as severe as we encountered in 2020, but the numbers are still substantially elevated from claims numbers prior to the pandemic. The good news for those still unemployed after a year is there are a record number of job listings on Employ Georgia in many different markets across the entire state."
More than 226,000 job listings are online at https://employgeorgia.com/ for Georgians to access.
