Temporary Job and Unemployment Benefits

by Jason
(New York, NY, USA)

Temporary Job and Unemployment Benefits in New York

After being laid off in September 2010, I received unemployment insurance for 6 weeks. At that time, I took a temporary job offer that lasted for ten weeks which has now ended due to lack of work. My temp agency currently cannot find me an assignment that meets my qualifications and I will therefore be unemployed again. Can I file for unemployment insurance on my original claim now that my temp assignment has ended? I am actively seeking for a new job but in the meantime, my question is whether I can file to reinstate my old claim or whether I have to apply for a new one with the temp agency. I stopped claiming benefits once I resumed work. When I went to continue my benefits on the NYS DOL website, the website required me to provide the last place of employment, fed'l ID number, address, etc, and I found this strange considering that I wasn't applying to file a new claim with the temp agency.

One final question: The client I was working for (via the temp agency) provided the last week of the calendar year off as vacation time for its employees. During this time, I was out of work for one week with no pay as my agency did not provide me with a one-week assignment to supplement the time off. The following week, I returned to work full-time for ONE week before the job finally coming to an end due to lack of work. Can I file for unemployment benefits for the one week that I was out of work? The questionnaire asked if I had "returned to work full time" to which I replied "yes". Indeed I returned to work for one final week. That was the last and final week of my being employed. In a nutshell, can one generally file/stop/file/stop/file ...on the same initial claim? Thanks for your time.





Yes, you can Jason. As long as the benefit year of the existing claim has not ended.

But states can sometimes making it confusing and it doesn't always seem to work properly .. as far as letting you reopen an existing NY unemployment claim.