Legal Question in Employment Law in California
How is it that the CA EDD says that if you work full time (even if you are on commission only and have earned NO income yet) you are ineligible for benefits? There are evenings and weekends we can still look for employment and can accept it if offered. On the website it says that (and it gives an example of a Real Estate Agent) you need to claim the commission earned the week you are paid. I am a Loan Officer, basically working the same way as a Real Estate Agent (work 50 - 60 hours a week until you finally get something closed and get paid) but I was denied benefits because I am w-2 and my employer reports I am full time. Shouldn't the only issue be if I've received any income?
1 Answer from Attorneys
The EDD expects you to be available to accept work, and that basically means standard full-time working hours during the week. If you are already working full-time, only being available to accept work on evenings and weekends doesn't count because you are not "available to accept work," even if you aren't getting paid for the work you are doing.
As you may know, when you fill out an unemployment claim form, you need to state whether there was any reason you could not have accepted full-time work each workday, and you must be looking for work each week. If you are already working full-time hours, you couldn't truthfully state that you could have accepted full-time work.
If the unemployment system were structured so that any employee who works full-time on a commission basis could be on unemployment at the same time as long as they weren't earning any commissions, imagine how many (more) people would be on unemployment right now. The system just would not work.
I know this is much easier said than done in this economy, but if you aren't happy with the commission-only position, keep looking until you find a paying position, or continue to work hard so that you can start earning those commissions.
Good luck!
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