NJ Employers Soon Face Additional Unemployment Reporting Obligations and Heightened Penalties

Seyfarth Synopsis: Beginning July 31, 2023, New Jersey employers will face additional unemployment insurance reporting obligations and significantly increased penalties for noncompliance with new amendments to the Unemployment Compensation Law. 

A deadline is approaching for employers to adjust their processes for separated employees.  New Jersey recently amended its Unemployment Compensation Law to increase unemployment reporting obligations upon employers and significantly increase the penalties for noncompliance.  The main takeaways are as follows:

• New Submission Requirements. Employers will have to comply with two new submission requirements beginning July 31, 2023.
  • New Jersey employers are already required to provide every separated employee immediately upon separation with Form BC-10, which provides information about unemployment benefits. However, starting July 31, 2023, employers will be required to “immediately and simultaneously” send the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development’s Division of Unemployment Insurance (“LWD”) a copy of the same Form BC-10 that was provided to the separated employee. 
  • Also beginning July 31, employers will have to provide a separated employee and the LWD with a new form (to be published by the LWD with submission instructions) that will include information “sufficient to enable the [LWD] to make a benefit determination.”  Employers will need to submit this new form to the LWD irrespective of whether the separated employee applies for unemployment benefits.  This new form will need to be submitted to the LWD along with the Form BC-10 described above.  
• Increased Penalties.  Until now, employers faced a mere $25 fine for every 10 days that the employer failed to provide benefits-related information to the LWD.  Beginning July 31, however, an employer that “willfully fails or refuses to furnish any reports or information . . . including [the required separation information],” is liable for a $500 fine, or 25 percent of the “amount fraudulently withheld,” whichever is greater.  Moreover, “each such false statement or representation or failure to disclose a material fact, and each day of such failure or refusal shall constitute a separate offense.” 

Feel free to reach out to any of the authors of this alert – or your regular Seyfarth contact – with any questions.