HR asked if I was interested in leaving my job so I could go to graduate school full time. I told her I would need to collect unemployment and it was something I am interested in and I asked if she could find out if I could collect unemployment. HR told my boss and my boss let me go because I was interested in finding out more information about unemployment. They are still providing unemployment benefits. Is this legal?
Rita Risser Chai Replies:
If you are an at-will employee—and the vast majority of employees are—you can be fired for any reason or no reason. Thus, it is probably legal, though you should check with an attorney to be sure. As a policy matter, your HR department is terrible. They never should have told your boss and they never should have allowed your termination to go through. It’s good you’re getting unemployment, and in some states you may be able to get reduced rates in graduate school due to the way they’ve chosen to use federal COVID funds. Good luck.
Posted 10-20-2020
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