Step by Step for filing your Louisiana Unemployment Claim

Things to have to file your unemployment claim

Driver License

Bank Account information Routing and Account number

Past check stubs / rough employment record

1. Log / create an account at www.louisianaworks.net - Click register for your HiRE account if you have never
filed before. This is the site all your unemployment processing will happen from.

2. Under Services for Individuals – Unemployment Services – Select File a Claim

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 3. They will ask to review your information then it goes to a page that says please sign up for direct deposit
because the debit cards take longer. – you can click next on both these pages

4. Work History Verification page - Click Yes if you worked between 1/1/2019 and 12/31/2019

5. Did you work in Two or more states / Have you claimed unemployment? If you have worked in two or more
states, it will bring up a screen like below. Click off Louisiana and any other state you may have worked in during
2019.

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 6. If you have multiple states, be sure to file the Claim in Louisiana - you will not see this screen if you only worked
in Louisiana. It will let them know they should reach out to the other states to see what your wages were so
they can possibly bring your determination amount up.

7. Federal Service – for most people this answer is no.

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 8. Military Service – once again, for most, this answer is no.

9. Login information and demographics – pick your user name and security questions.
10. Name Page
11. Address Page
12. Phone Page – be sure to select voice on the primary phone
13. Notification page – choose email - then tell them where you are accessing the site from
14. Citizenship / Disability/ Child Support

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 15. Education page

16. Employment Information – the referred by status will show up once you select Claimant – Choose Not
Applicable

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 17. Employment Status – this is where you “notate” you have 1099 work. – Do not mark this unless you have wages
that are not claimed under W-2s . Kit rentals do not need to be reported as self-employed income.

18. Employment – Misc – This is where you answer Yes for COVID-19. Be sure to read these questions and answer
yes if they apply.

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 19. Labor Union Member – yes or no – using No for this example. – It was really important to have this information
before, but now that people do not have to do weekly work searches, if it gives you problems, tell it no. Local
478 is in their system by typing I Atse you need the space for some reason between the I and A

20. Job Title and Occupation – your TITLE should be whatever you usually work as. The OCCUPATION you should
probably put Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Motion Picture. If you start typing Camera Operator it
will give you the option to click on the description. This is how they are flagging people to the film industry

21. Ethnic Origin page

22. Military Service Page – answer appropriately
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 23. Identification Page
24. Payment information page – put your routing number in and if it is correct the Bank name should come up in a
pop up, then fill under the routing info. Also decide on this page if you want to have federal taxes withheld at
10%
25. FINALLY we are at UNEMPLOYMENT Compensation Claim – click next
26. Previous Employment History - a list of employers are going to pop up – choose the one that you have worked
at most recently.
27. Employer page – If it is a payroll company and the address is a Louisiana Address, don’t worry about changing it.
a. Did you earn at least $2470 from this employer?
b. Is this your last employer? – hopefully this is yes
c. Job Title – what you do
d. Occupation – use Camera Operator again if it is film related
e. Position

f. Date last worked is under Reason for Separation

g. All the buttons after this are probably NO
h. Job Duties type in a short description of duties may want to include this language.
i. Film and television production work is project to project. The work is the same, but the payroll
companies change depending on the project. Due to the high stress and long hours, workers
tend to take breaks between projects. Entire industry shut down due to COVID-19
i. Hit save and when the pop ups come up for would you like to add click cancel all 3 times.

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You will repeat Step 27 for the W-2 work you have done that is reported in the unemployment system.

28. Once all your work is in, or you have input your major employers, - Base Period Employment – will pull up in a
grid at the top of this page. It will show where you worked in 2019 and how much you earned in each quarter.

29. Unemployment Insurance Claim Confirmation – if you put a union in here, DO NOT click Review My Claim, just
hit next. For some reason the Union box is still throwing everyone into a crazy loop. You can review your claim
if you need to, just know to hit the back button. To get out of it if it starts giving you problems. Or there are not
any corrections to make.

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 30. Self Employment – This is where you report your 1099 work in a sense. It is very broad and as long as you
answer the questions, it will qualify you for the federal portion of the unemployment if you did not qualify for
the state portion. What you put here will not help increase the state portion of the determination.

31. Important Agreement – click yes to file your claim – you are almost done.

32. There will next be a page with a bunch of green boxes to check off. Read through them and check them off and
click next at the end.
33. Then you will get a summary of everything you checked off. Click next at the bottom and it takes you to your
dashboard. You have filed your return.
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So I filed my unemployment claim, what is next?
Expect to get an email in the next day or two that is your Monetary Determination letter. If you don’t see it within a
couple of days, log in to your HiRE account and look to see if it is there in your messages.

Take a look at your letter. The top should have a grid of your W-2 wages for the period they were looking for and you
should find something like this.

The Weekly Benefit Amount will be anywhere between $0 - $247 - This number is only reflective of the state amount
and does not reflect the federal $600 per week they are adding

The Maximum Benefit Amount will be your WBA times 26 weeks.

The Benefit Year Begins date is the important one. Work done before this date that you may receive checks for after
this date do not count as additional income or have to be reported on your weekly claim.

Next you file your Weekly Claim Certification – see document Filing your Weekly Louisiana
Unemployment Claims

You have to look at it as submitting your timecard. Accounting starts accepting timecards on Sunday for the prior
Sunday to Saturday. You have until Friday at 4pm to submit that timecard.

So a time card that is due on Sunday, April 5th is to report for the week Sunday March 29-Saturday April 4. If you do not
submit the timecard between Sunday, April 5 and Friday, April 10 at 4pm, YOU DO NOT GET PAID They do not go
backwards.

They do the deposits as they process the weekly certification, so the sooner you file, the sooner your deposit processes.
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