2021 Regular Session ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 244
BY SENATOR JACKSON
A RESOLUTION
To urge and request the Louisiana Workforce Commission to study its work search
requirements for persons receiving unemployment benefits and to provide
recommendations for improving their effectiveness and strengthening of the
processes for confirming compliance or enforcing compliance in cases of failure to
comply.
WHEREAS, Louisiana's unemployment compensation system exists to provide
workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own temporary support as they
attempt to obtain employment again; and
WHEREAS, employers in agriculture, business, and industry pay taxes into a state
unemployment compensation fund via their individual experience-rated tax accounts to
provide benefits for their workers in the event their employment is discontinued due to
economic circumstances; and
WHEREAS, the COVID-19 pandemic caused serious disruption to agricultural,
business, and industrial operations across Louisiana, resulting in unprecedented numbers of
workers losing their employment in 2020 and historic levels of unemployment
benefit-claiming by affected workers, which overwhelmed the Louisiana Workforce
Commission's unemployment claims technology and personnel; and
WHEREAS, with the availability of vaccines to immunize individuals from the novel
coronavirus, Louisiana's economy, along with states around the country, is beginning to
recover from the effects of the pandemic; and
WHEREAS, the number of claimants for unemployment benefits is substantially
diminished this year from what it was during the second quarter of last year; and
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WHEREAS, employers in agriculture, business, and industry are finally able to
reopen, engage with customers, receive orders, increase production, and perform services
but are experiencing difficulty finding the workers they need in order to do so, and in some
cases are precluded from even reopening their shops; and
WHEREAS, the Louisiana Workforce Commission has an enforcement obligation
under the law to conduct administrative reviews of any claims in which individuals'
continued unemployment is by their own choosing and to disqualify them from receipt of
benefits in such cases; and
WHEREAS, any failure to ensure that benefits are properly due and payable to
claimants has an adverse impact on individual employers' experience-rated tax accounts and,
in some instances, may even put the solvency of Louisiana's unemployment insurance trust
fund at risk.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of Louisiana does hereby urge
and request the Louisiana Workforce Commission to conduct a comprehensive study of its
requirements and procedures related to unemployed individuals' search for work, as well as
make an inventory of the investigatory and enforcement tools at its disposal, review
measures existing in other states to address the verification of such work searches,
particularly those states that provide mechanisms and forms for employers to easily report
job offer refusals or failures to interview for positions, and ensure that sufficient protections
exist for those unemployed who are determined to have failed to conduct a proper work
search so that they may appeal and where found appropriate, have their benefits reinstated.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Louisiana Workforce Commission shall
prepare and submit a final report that contains a detailed statement of its findings and policy
recommendations, including any proposed legislation, to the Senate Committee on Labor
and Industrial Relations no later than February 1, 2022.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
secretary of the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
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