Labor & employment attorney Matt Durham was quoted in Bloomberg Law’s Daily Labor Report® in an article titled “Covid-19 Forces Employers to Weigh Layoffs Versus Furloughs,” published March 25, 2020. The article discusses considerations for businesses faced with making the decision whether they lay off or furlough workers to manage coming weeks or months of uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though layoffs and furloughs are similar in that they allow an employer to shed payroll liability, they can have differing financial and legal implications for both an employer and its employees, in areas that include notice, pay and benefits.
Durham said that he is seeing many employers required to cease operating by local and state governments choose to furlough employees as the businesses hope to be back in operation in a few months. He notes also that businesses will be helped by probable expansion by the states of work-share programs, which allow them to avoid layoffs by reducing workers’ wages and using unemployment benefits to make up the shortfall.
“Everyone hopes it’s more or less a temporary thing than an economic driver for the foreseeable future,” Durham said.