well just last week I heard on NPR, may be Marketplace. They were saying there are these huge tech layoffs happening but unemployment claims haven't gone up that much because people are getting new jobs quickly. So basically I don't know what/who to believe.
Unemployment is capped very low compared to tech salaries, involves a bunch of paperwork, and requires you to attest that you're actively pursuing opportunties for work in your field.
Lots of highly paid people don't bother with it, even when they might have qualified -- whether because they're lazy to lazy to do the paperwork for a small offset against their expenses, or because they intentionally took time away from the labor market after being fired and aren't into lying about it.
> Unemployment is capped very low compared to tech salaries, involves a bunch of paperwork, and requires you to attest that you're actively pursuing opportunties for work in your field.
This wasn't my experience in my state. While the first point may potentially be true for those making $250k+, getting unemployment took me less than 30 minutes going through an online portal. That's a trivial amount of work to make >$2k a month. The "attesting" was me submitting names of 3 companies I applied to while unemployed, and this was only asked of me 2 months into receiving unemployment benefits.
In some states, severance pay can delay or reduce eligibility for unemployment benefits. The generous multi-month severance packages that many tech workers receive could have an effect on the unemployment numbers as a consequence—but I’m speculating.
This is true, it happened to me. Unemployment benefits did not start paying until the severance was used up (even if you get a lump sum, they pro-rate it based on your salary to calculate the time).
