Unemployment Collection Gets Complicated

Many of the seasonal Door County businesses close their doors in November and 12 weeks from then, their employees’ lives get a bit more difficult. Changes to work search requirements that began last year are now requiring employees, who expect to be recalled by their employer, to complete four work searches every week after the initial eight-week waiver (although there is a four-week extension that can be applied for before having to register for the four weekly work searches).

With at least 12 more weeks before these seasonal businesses bring back their workers, the employment landscape in the county is changing.

“There’s a lot of people that typically, sometimes by choice and sometimes by nature, don’t work in the winter,” said Kim Carley, Door County Job Center Manager, in a December interview. “So people have worked through October or November and now are going to be off until May, but they are mandated to do four job searches a week.”

A job or work search means contacting an employer with your resumé or filling out a job application. The goal is to encourage those collecting unemployment to find work as quickly as possible. But in a place with a designated offseason, where unemployment is as commonplace as multiple jobs through the summer, the rules can seem unwieldy.

The mandated work searches feel unnecessary to Amber Hamilton, who works part-time at the Ridges Sanctuary throughout the year and as a bartender at The Cookery during the summer and fall. Every week, she simply tells four businesses in the county she is fulfilling her work search requirement but she is not looking for another job despite applying.

At Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, Human Resources Manager Bill Behme has seen an uptick in the number of applicants for their seasonal winter hiring campaign.

“I guess we’re ferreting out the best of what we can,” said Behme, who can’t say whether the increase in applications is related to the work search requirements. “As we do the initial call to them, we’re looking for people who are genuinely interested in the work. If somebody is simply looking for a signoff, that becomes pretty evident.”

Bay Shipbuilding likely hires the most winter seasonal workers of any business in the county, bringing in 300 to 500 temporary workers to help with their winter fleet.

“The skill level is a broad array from extremely experienced to completely inexperienced,” said Behme. “We found that, of that bottom portion that didn’t have any skills, it would make more sense for us to find a regular winter group that came from the area.”

With many businesses in the tourism industry closed for the winter as well as other summer seasonal jobs, such as landscaping and homebuilding, the possibility of finding a consistent winter workforce was good. In two years of the winter fleet hiring program, Bay Shipbuilding has gone on to hire some of these seasonal workers for full-time, year-round positions, sometimes taking them away from the seasonal work they had been doing.

“Our intent in doing this is not to take employees away from other businesses,” said Behme. “I think the bigger contingency are those folks that like what they’re doing.”

Still, finding winter work that can turn into steady year-round employment can draw some people away from their seasonal jobs in tourism-centered businesses. That’s why, this winter, The Cookery did something to ease the stress of unemployment on workers who will be returning in the spring. They brought back their staff still in the county during the winter to clock in during Fish Creek’s Winter Festival.

“Being that we are a seasonal business, we rely on key employees who return every year to help get us up and running,” said Karin Skare, manager at The Cookery. “The required work search means they may find employment elsewhere, leaving us strapped.”

By recalling their staff and then closing again, the 12-week work search waiver period was re-upped. Those 12 weeks will take employees right up to the day The Cookery opens for the summer season, helping their staff avoid the burden of work searches. It also encourages employees to not seek out jobs during the offseason, which, in the case of Bay Shipbuilding’s winter employees, has led to some leaving their original jobs.

Door County’s unemployment rate has increased nearly four percent from October of last year. Paired with the general labor shortage seen in all of northeast Wisconsin and Door County in particular, businesses are continually coming up with new and creative ways to attract employees before the busy summer season hits again.