This program has been around for years as a way for employers to reduce hours for a group of employees, rather than layoff a few of them. Normally it’s a mixed bag – employees have their hours and pay reduced by 20-40%, and then get back about 2/3rds of the pay reduction from the state’s Unemployment Insurance fund. But the CARES act $600 a week UI add on makes it a great deal. An employee earning say $1000 a week could take a 20% furlough. They’d lose $200 in pay, but get back ~$130 in UI, plus $600 from the CARES act supplement. Net, their gross pay increases from $1000 to $1530.
Of course it takes a while to enroll, and the CARES act funding runs out July 25th. Benefits will be retroactive to the time of application, but UO could have done this at the beginning of April. UO would have saved money and their employees would have made money. In this example, the employee lost about $4K because UO started the program 2 months late.
That said, better late than never. Details here:
https://hr.uoregon.edu/programs-services/uo-voluntary-summer-work-share-program
FWIW, my contacts in the RO, AO, IS and Johnson Hall all tell me management is discouraging staff from applying
On what grounds?
Because those depts don’t ‘slow down’ over the summer (such as academic depts) and are considered ‘essential’ by their leadership. I suspect there are disadvantages politically to be seen as a dept which allows/encourages employees to apply – resulting in negative impacts to other project-dependent depts which don’t – OR – if a dept implements this to a large scale and demonstrates their ability to operate sufficiently being of note with the culling comes in the fall. Alas, I speculate…
Lane Community College’s unions have been begging their administration to set up this program as well. It’s a win-win, with the institution saving money and the employees benefiting from federal funds (as well as some much-needed time away from work in these stressful times).