How to help workers who can't work from home

With less than 30% of U.S. workers able to perform their jobs remotely, companies and their employees are being affected severely by the current public health crisis. Stuart Andreason, director of the Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, notes in “COVID-19, Workers, and Policy” that “working from home is simply not an option for many workers and many firms cannot accommodate work-from-home arrangements.”

Short-Time Compensation is one public program designed to reduce layoffs during times of reduced demand. Short-Time Compensation, or work sharing or shared-work, programs help reduce layoffs by enabling an employer to cut staff hours of workers who then are able to receive partial unemployment compensation benefits. Twenty-seven states offer these programs, including four in the Kansas City Fed’s seven-state Tenth District:

·        Colorado:  https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdle/layoffassistance

·        Kansas:  https://www.dol.ks.gov/employers/shared-work-program

·        Missouri:  http://labor.mo.gov/DES/Employers/shared_work  

·        Nebraska:  https://dol.nebraska.gov/STC

For additional information about the effects of remote work policies, Short-Time Compensation programs, and other policies to support workers facing reduced hours and potential layoffs, see Andreason’s research in “COVID-19, Workers, and Policy.”