Staying on the job: A program in Rhode Island helps businesses keep people employed

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November 4, 2011

Help Wanted is Need to Know’s monthly series dedicated to exploring America’s jobs crisis. It will continue on the first Friday of every month through Election Day 2012, to coincide with the jobs report.

No number can really measure how difficult life becomes when a breadwinner is forced off the payroll. One state is trying to prevent that from happening.

Rhode Island is using unemployment insurance to keep workers on the job. The so-called “workshare plan” enables businesses thinking of firing workers to reduce their hours instead. The state makes up most of the difference in pay. This means the state pays out less than if the workers had been fired, employees get to keep their jobs, and companies keep their workforces essentially intact.

Need to Know’s Mona Iskander reports on this innovative job-saving program, which seems to be paying off.

Last modified: November 4, 2011 at 2:37 pm
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Comments

  • demand_sider

    Kurzarbeit for America, finally.

  • Davie Jones

    I have forever noticed many inventors have in the work place have just been simply overlooked by many including the company owners! They simply get swept under the rug because of the power struggle the plays out in the work place between employee’s or the office upper ups. What would have happened to the world if Thomas Edison would have had to work in this environment? I as an inventor myself don’t trust the patent idea for the simple reason of China being able to get my idea and mass producing it and black-marketing it here and costing me in the long run, so why try? Can big business or the government get us out of the pit were in? I have to say NO! Here in the US of A with NAFTA being passed have turned this country into a service sector job country where all were doing now with money is passing it around instead of selling to foreign countries or as I call it merry go round economy! This may be great for the stock markets for now but in time this too will trickle down. The capitalist economy is just like a game of monopoly where who ever has the most in the end wins and the rest just sit it out like what is happening right now! Is there any hope? Now that’s a good question!