Many employers express frustration with the unemployment system and believe that it is easier to prevent a claimant from collecting benefits if the employee is forced to quit rather than having to fire them.

Employers typically try to accomplish this by making the job less desirable to the employee, by cutting their hours, moving them farther away, giving them unpleasant tasks or other changes.

These shortcuts or quick and dirty solutions all fall under the definition of "changing the initial terms of hire" and will lead to the employee, now the claimant being awarded unemployment benefits.

According to law, a person has certain expectations of what their job will be like when they are first hired. When a substantial change to that occurs, especially one that puts less money into an employee's pocket by a loss of hours or a greater distance to work, it will be easy for the claimant to justify quitting and now receiving benefits.

Best regards, Jason H. Clark, Esq.

January 17, 2014