For many years, New Jersey employers have been required to give every terminated employee a Form BC-10, which provides information about unemployment benefits. However, starting July 31, 2023, employers were also required to “immediately and simultaneously” send the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development’s Division of Unemployment Insurance a copy of the same Form BC-10 and to give the employee and the DOL a new form that includes information “sufficient to enable the [DOL] to make a benefit determination”, whether or not the worker applies for unemployment benefits. These amendments to the NJ Unemployment Insurance Law, P.L. 2022, c.120, increase penalties for employer non-compliance to from $25 to $500.
But, more than nine months after the law’s effective date, DOL has still not come up with the new mandatory form or given employers any guidance about how to comply.
On its website DOL has posted some FAQs on the new law, which acknowledge that DOL “has not yet provided to employers the ‘directions’ that would instruct them what information an employer must provide to [DOL] immediately upon an individual’s separation from employment,” and assure that “employers will not be expected to provide information to [DOL] immediately upon an employee’s separation from employment” until such instructions are provided to employers. (emphasis added) DOL also clarifies that “the new law does not require that an employer send the completed BC-10 form to [DOL]. Rather, “under the new law, the only information from the BC-10 form that the employer is required to provide to the Division immediately upon the employee’s separation from employment is the date upon which the unemployment will begin.”
While awaiting the DOL’s next steps, all NJ employers should register with DOL’s Employer Access and provide an email address to the Division, as required by the amended law. (Employers can get out of email-only communication only by submitting a signed, sworn affidavit that they have no access to a computer, through any means, for the purposes of communicating electronically with DOL.)
