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Page | 258 In the case of participating households, Specialists must determine if a member voluntarily quit or reduced his/her hours while participating when there is a loss or reduction of a source of earned income. Also, if someone enters a participating household and the individual is unemployed, benefits specialists must determine if the individual quit employment without good cause within the prior 60 days.

Persons on strike are not considered to have quit or reduced hours of employment. However, an employee of the Federal Government or of a State or local government who participates in a strike against such government and is dismissed from his or her employment because of participation in the strike, these individuals will be considered to have voluntarily quit without good cause.

Under some circumstances, a person who loses his/her job or has a reduction in hours can be considered to have voluntarily quit/reduced hours even though technically the person was fired or the employer reduced the hours. The basic rule of thumb to determine if the termination/reduction is not considered a voluntary quit/reduction is if the reason for the termination/reduction was beyond the employee's control. If the reason is within the employee’s control, the voluntary quit/reduction of hours penalty should be applied.

A person is also considered to have voluntarily quit if the person simply leaves the job unannounced or does not return to work. If the person says the absence was because of illness or similar good cause reasons, even if he does not report this to the employer and was fired, the person did not voluntarily quit, therefore, no work registration sanction may be applied. Prudent worker judgment is necessary to determine if a sanction for quit/reduction of hours should be imposed.

In addition, there are certain situations or changes in employment status that will not be considered a voluntary quit. 1. If a change in employment status results from the employer reducing hours of employment through no fault of the employee, no penalty would be imposed; 2. Terminating a self-employment enterprise; 3. Resigning from a job at the demand of the employer if the employee did not cause the employer to request his/her resignation; or 4. Quitting a job to take a new job with 30 or more hours a week of employment or employment paying at least the Federal minimum wage equivalent of 30 hours a week) and is then laid off or loses the new job through no fault of their own, the initial quit is not considered voluntary.

If an individual quits or reduces hours in a training program, voluntary quit provisions do not apply, however, failure to comply with work provision requirements could be applied if there is no good cause for quitting or reducing training hours. This would apply to the following training programs: 1. Summer Youth Payments 2. On-the-job WIOA for migrant and seasonal farm workers, Native Americans, dislocated workers, Job Corps, affirmative action programs, labor market information programs, and veterans’ employment programs 3. Work experience WIOA 4. Training experience WIOA 5. AmeriCorps and Youthbuild Program Example: An individual had been warned numerous times about smoking on the job, the employee continues smoking on the job and is fired when the employer catches him. This person had been warned by the employer, and continued the behavior after the warning, so the employee is considered to have voluntarily quit employment.