HR Specialist: Texas Employment Law

Everything’s bigger in Texas – including employer liability. Aggressive attorneys don’t stop with federal laws like FMLA, ADA and FLSA: they use state and local living-wage statutes, rural codes, plus discrimination and other laws to sue employers for sky’s-the-limit damages. This Texas-specific newsletter arrives monthly to help sue-proof every aspect of HR. Written in plain English, it’s your insurance policy for staying in step with current interpretations of state and local laws – and staying out of court. Learn more about HR Specialist: Texas Employment Law and the free report you’ll get when you subscribe...

Texas Workforce Commission Chairman Tom Pauken of Dallas recently announced that Texas employers should expect their unemployment insurance taxes to rise significantly next year.

Pauken said the increase in layoffs is close to exhausting a state trust fund. Thus, he and two other commissioners have authorized what they expect to be $2 billion in interest-free borrowing from the federal government to pay state unemployment benefits into 2010. Pauken anticipates issuing $2 billion in bonds to repay the federal loan.

“What I’d like to do is spread it out over a number of years, rather than hit them all at once in 2010,” he said.