COVID-19 Update May 7, 2020

The EEOC announced today that they won’t collect the EEO-1 forms for 2020. Our whole HR team jumped for joy! In addition, COBRA deadlines have also been extended (download below).

A little depressing news is the attached article showing 3.1 million new unemployment claims last week, which totals over 22.6 million overall claims. This equals or surpasses the great depression amount of people out of work. Hoping the Phase 1 opening around the country is going to start getting people safely back to work.

To make matters worse the governor of California released an executive order yesterday (copy below) stating that if you worked anywhere and develop Coronavirus within 14 days of working there, it will be assumed that you caught it at work, therefore making it a Workers Compensation claim.

Leave it to California to spend money that is not theirs. This is projected to cost the insurance companies an additional 65% above their normal claims. There is simply not enough paid-in premium to support this.

Since California is such a large market, it will affect rates all over the country — even if no other state adopts this policy. Many states already have this policy in place or have legislation pending to make this happen. We are hearing that if you are in the healthcare industry, be prepared to start paying a much larger cost for work comp.

Sorry to have such a gloomy report today! We at Delta are seeing many of our clients opening and/or starting to pay their employees through the PPP program, which is exciting from our end.

Today’s attachments:

• 3.1 Million Unemployment claims – this is the article from SHRM I mentioned above about the latest unemployment claims.
• 5-6-20 California Executive Order – this is the California Governors executive order about COVID-19 claims being covered by Workers Compensation Insurance.
• DOL Temporarily extends COBRA Deadlines – extends the period in which eligible employees can elect COBRA health insurance coverage.
• EEOC won’t collect Employer EEO-1 data in 2020 – EEOC states delaying the collections until 2021 will ensure that EEO filers are better positioned to provide accurate, valid, and reliable data in a timely manner.
• FAQ from Gordon Berger – Gordon is one of the Labor Attorneys we work with and has put together a FAQ on the latest items about HR and the PPP.
• Getting back to work best practices – Publication put out by GNO Inc. that is very well done and covers multiple industries.
• Which PPP expenses are eligible for forgiveness? – a good article put out by SHRM about the PPP program. We continue to include these articles because the rules keep changing, and everyone has a different view of the rules.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.