It’s supposed to snow Friday here in Connecticut.

In October.

For those of us with memories, we all remember the last time we got substantial snowfall in October in 2011. It ended with lots of power outages and many downed trees. So let’s first hope the snow is just more nuisance than anything else.

Far

Yesterday, my colleague Peter Murphy and I set out to write a summary of one of Connecticut’s quiet success stories during this pandemic — the Shared Work program from the Connecticut Department of Labor.

You can find the entire article here.

What is this little program that has served an outsized role the last few

As if the pandemic weren’t disorienting enough, the rules and guidance surrounding unemployment compensation feels as if it keeps changing too.

While that’s not entirely accurate — Connecticut’s rules are basically unchanged though some of the application of those rules have been tweaked — the new CARES Act has added a layer of complexity that

To paraphrase a popular quote: There are years when nothing happens and there are days (and weeks) when years happen.

The nonstop barrage of news, orders, and other materials continues making updating a blog on the subject feel hopelessly out of date the moment you click “Publish”.

So rather than any lofty posts this

Sometimes, government is thought of as the enforcer of rules.  But sometimes, the government is also in the business of helping businesses too.

The latest example of this is an Employer Resource Guide put out a few weeks ago by the Connecticut Department of Labor. You can download it directly here.  

According to its introduction:

One of the better programs run by the Connecticut Department of Labor that gets almost zero publicity is the “Shared Work” program.  For employers, it’s a useful tool when you’re dealing with a temporary slowdown in work.

I talked about it five (!) years ago in the midst of the recession so I’m not going

 A few months ago, I noted that Connecticut’s Department of Labor has had a long-standing (but, until recently, little-used) woPhoto courtesy of Library of Congress, Manchester Parachute Mills, circa 1942rk-share program under the title of the Shared Work program.  

The Connecticut DOL describes it as:

a voluntary program providing an alternative to layoffs for employers faced with a temporary decline in business. Rather than