No idea. It makes sense to expect the worst and seek employment elsewhere. There are online opportunities to look into too so that can help tie you over if you start NOW. Generally the pay-off for freelance work online takes take to pick up, so better to start now and establish a foothold (just in case).

Note: I’ve looked into this myself a little. The competition isn’t exactly overwhelming when it comes to content writers for blogs and general editing (some of the attempts I’ve seen were poor to mediocre and received a decent payment!)

GL

I don't really need tiding over, since the enhanced unemployment is paying slightly more than I would even have been making at my normal job -- and also I have piles of savings to tide me over long enough to find new work after that. My only worry is about whether I will have to look for new work, which I really don't want to have to do. I don't want to be a freelancer. I don't want to do piece work. I want my old hourly W2 work-from-home job back, if at all possible.

Well, the world doesn’t care what you want. You can worry about the future or you can expect, and plan for, the worst.

I know you know this! Sometimes hearing it from a stranger helps though ;)

Either way GL, whatever the law dictates you and your boss can and can’t do. You sound like you’re in a fortunate position compared to many.

I definitely am in a fortunate position compared to many.

What I want is relevant insofar as it informs what I should do. I shouldn’t do things that will lead me away from my goals, like giving up on my old job and rushing to find another I’ll enjoy much less when I have the opportunity to wait and the possibility that things will go back to how they were.

My parents, girlfriend, and the government all tell me I don’t have to be looking for work right now. Strangers on the internet mostly say otherwise. I think I’ll follow the former rather than the latter.

Anyway, all I was asking about was if anyone has any insight into what the law does say about PPP and mandatory rehiring, because I’m not clear about that.


Also, anyone else feel free to share about how coronavirus has impacted your work situation too.

My parents, girlfriend, and the government all tell me I don’t have to be looking for work right now. Strangers on the internet mostly say otherwise. I think I’ll follow the former rather than the latter. — Pfhorrest

My friend in the UK tried looking for work, he's a chemical engineer that can do data analysis. He's had over 80 applications, no responses except for one; which gave him an offer, then rescinded it after delaying for months. It's unlikely to be a fun time for a while, like it was in 2008, only more.

Edit: everyone's getting fired now, getting a job now will thus be hard.

I don't want to be a freelancer. — Pfhorrest

I'm in the same field as you are, and even breifly did some freelance work for one of the employers listed on your resume. I got a referal thing going in the Ojai valley some years ago. Anyway, just wanted to say that freelance isn't so bad.

I found this useful and encouraging information:

In order to qualify for a PPP loan, you’ll need to restore your business and any changes that you’ve made, including employment levels and salaries, by June 30, 2020.

[...]

If you’ve had to lay off employees or reduce salary levels between February 15, 2020 and April 26, 2020, you can still qualify for PPP loans.

In order to be eligible, you just need to hire back your employees (technically any employees, but of course the intent is to keep your former staff employed) and restore their salaries and hours worked to be the same that they were before this time period. You must have this done by June 30, 2020. — “Womply

So it stands to reason that I should wait until the end of June to see if my work will get their old act back together. If not then I’ll still have a whole month of enhanced unemployment that pays even more than my normal pay, then another three months of regular unemployment at half pay which combined with subsidized heath insurance is a break-even income/expense balance, and then I have a year of normal expenses (not factoring in how subsidized health care will make that last even longer) to go off of before I even have to touch my IRA, which in turn would buy me at least another year.

So I’m pretty sure it’s safe for me to wait a few months to see if normalcy returns before rushing out into the worst job hunting climate in decades.

I'm in the same field as you are, and even breifly did some freelance work for one of the employers listed on your resume. — praxis

Oh cool, I’m curious which. Feel free to PM me if you don’t want to say publicly. (I think I can guess, if you mean graphic design work).

Since you’re local maybe we could grab lunch or something once all this stay-at-home is over. Would be nice to know someone else IRL.

Yeah, sounds good.

It was Dianne Steal, back when she was trying to market wine cozies. Not the most lucrative client I ever had, which is why it was so brief.

Ah cool, that’s who I thought. She was an old friend from TaeKwonDo way back in the day, and I helped her get her dye sublimation merchandise business up and running way back then.

I hope she was/is successful. She has a sweet disposition, in my experience.

In Ojai at the time I did work for an ayurvedic healer, some kind of Lymph node masseuse, an art gallery, and I built a website for a guy that literally sold electrified water by the plastic jug. Pretty standard fare for Ojai, really. :lol:

Yep, that sounds like Ojai alright. :rofl:

So, latest news from my employer suggests (can't get an answer out of him directly) that he is not looking into a PPP loan. I don't understand why that would possibly be. The things he actually said are that the problem is sales are down, not "access to money", but surely getting two months of payroll and other expenses covered by the government would be a good thing in any case, even if it doesn't completely solve the problem of sales being down.

Can anyone think of any reason why a small business would not pursue a PPP loan?

In my case, I can conceive that maybe he doesn't want to have to hire me back specifically (he also says things about "reorganizing due to coronavirus") because I was "highly-paid" (BLS says I was making just under the median pay in my field, but he seems to think what I asked for was a lot), but since the PPP loan would cover that payment for two months, and all his other employees' pay, and the rent, etc... that seems like the overall costs/benefit balance would still be in his favor.

I can see how why might also be being dodgy about it with me specifically, like maybe he is pursuing the loan but doesn't want to tell me because he doesn't want me to know he's avoiding rehiring me specifically... but then, the PPP loan would require him to (and pay for him to) pay someone the same thing he paid me, at least for those two months, and if he paid someone else besides me that same amount just for those two months, it would surely cause some big hubbub if he suddenly pays them half that much (or whatever; half that was his opening bid to me eight years ago) after the two months are over.

So, news from a while back was that the PPP got extended such that they have until the end of December to hire old employees back, and the whole time until then to spend the loan money they get.

Still no word from my old boss on whether he is even trying to get that loan, which still makes no sense at all to me.

But when the old June 30th deadline came and went and he still didn't ask me back, I started looking for new work at my old breakneck speed, figuring it would probably take me at least a month with the trickle of jobs I expected to find available to land a new job.

Well, it's been a month and a half now, and over 300 job applications later, a grand total of 3 have responded with anything vaguely resembling interest, and then two of them dropped out of contact, while the third couldn't pay enough for me to make ends meet.

And now the enhanced unemployment has run out, and fucking congress can't get their shit together enough to even pass a temporary relief bill of whatever the minimum they have in common is until they can sort out the rest of it.

I know the real fault lies with the Republicans, but I'm still pissed off at the Democrats for not even proposing (to my knowledge) to temporarily accept the Republicans' lower offer for the time being and then fight for more later.