WorkShare Program Allows Illinois Residents To Work While Still Collecting Unemployment, In Effort To Prevent Layoffs

CHICAGO (CBS) — More than 23,000 people filed for unemployment last week in Illinois – a figure down 17 percent from the week before.

But despite the drop in number, we’ve been hearing from business owners who say they can’t find employees to hire. Now, as CBS 2’s Tara Molina reported Thursday, the State of Illinois is making it possible for people to work and still collect unemployment – in an effort designed to prevent more layoffs.

The program is called WorkShare Illinois, and the state calls it a layoff aversion program. Molina talked to an expert, who said similar programs have worked in other countries – but this really would have been helpful at the start of the pandemic.

The course of the COVID-19 pandemic brought massive layoffs and an overwhelmed unemployment system. Now, the state is recovering from the pandemic and employees are encountering difficulty in getting people back to work.

“The unemployment checks and the stimulus checks are keeping people at home,” Steven Hartenstein of Stefani Restaurants said in April.

“We can’t get enough labor to satisfy doing enough jobs to bring in enough income to cover the expenses,” Bobby Braun of Braun Events said this month.

“Forty-eight percent of our business owners are saying they have positions they cannot fill,” said Mark Grant, the state director for the National Federation of Independent Business.

Now, a possible solution has emerged in WorkShare Illinois.

“It’s been in the works for a while,” said Grant, who is also on the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s Advisory Board.

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