Iowa Workforce Development Updates Unemployment Policy

Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) continues to update and change some of its initial policy decisions on unemployment after the passage of federal legislation, additional guidance from the Department of Labor and responding to extra stress on the unemployment insurance trust fund. The three changes are:

1. Employers no longer have to require employees to utilize all their paid leave prior to filing for unemployment.
2. Employers that have a voluntary shared work (VSW) program, or implement one during COVID-19, will not incur the 50% chargeable expense to the employer’s account.
3. IWD today announced a change in policy—they have implemented a trigger that once the trust fund gets to $950 million, the department will start charging employers’ accounts.

The ABI public policy team will have more information from IWD as it is released. Please join ABI staff for a conference call on these important changes at 8 a.m., Wednesday, April 15. If you have not joined a previous public policy conference call already this year, please RVSP to Michelle Vollstedt.