S579 Summary

• Establishes the Workforce Displacement Benefit Program to provide uniform payments to workers displaced by mass layoffs designated by the Governor as major distress events.

• Defines "mass layoff" as a reduction-in-force affecting at least 500 employees from a single facility or business entity within a locality during a twenty-week period.

• Program administered by the Office of the Governor with uniform payout amounts and eligibility periods for all displaced workers.

• Benefit payments available only after workers exhaust all eligible unemployment benefits.

• Funding appropriated from the General Fund.