Labor Department wants five job searches a week to keep unemployment checks

Unemployment insurance claimants would have to complete and report at least five qualifying work-search activities each week before any payment goes out, under a rule the Labor Department proposed Monday. The agency said the change would bolster the joint federal-state system's accountability. A qualifying activity could be applying to a job, building a profile on a job-search site or attending a networking event, depending on the state.

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling framed the proposal as a speed-up for workers. The rule, he said in the announcement, helps jobseekers find work faster while ensuring taxpayer dollars are used efficiently and the unemployment system's integrity improves. He doubled down on X the same day, writing that unemployment insurance is meant as temporary support between jobs, not a permanent taxpayer-funded paycheck. The public has 60 days to comment.

There's no single national standard right now. Federal law makes every state keep a work-search requirement, but states set their own eligibility rules, weekly payments and benefit durations. Only four states currently require a minimum of five searches a week, according to Michele Evermore, senior director of economic security and worker transitions at the National Employment Law Project, who said the rest ask for fewer.

Evermore called the proposal a dramatic rewrite of the safety net that would make it harder for claimants to hold onto benefits and drive up costs for states. She said nearly every state would have to redo claimant intake forms and the technology behind them, and many would need to change their laws. She also flagged the process itself, saying it is highly unusual for the Labor Department to unilaterally reshape state unemployment systems without clear direction from Congress.

The rule lands in a job market economists describe as low hire, low fire, with a weak national hiring rate and historically few layoffs leaving little churn and fewer openings for jobseekers. Workers out of work more than six months made up 27.6% of the unemployed as of October, up from 20.5% three years earlier. In almost all states, jobless workers generally can't collect unemployment insurance for longer than six months.