PART I.  DEFINITIONS

     §383-1  Definitions, generally.  As used in this chapter, unless the context clearly requires otherwise:

     "Administration fund" means the special unemployment insurance administration fund established pursuant to section 383-127.

     "Alternative base period" means the four completed calendar quarters immediately preceding the first day of an individual's benefit year.

     "American vessel" means any vessel documented or numbered under the laws of the United States; and includes any vessel which is neither documented or numbered under the laws of the United States nor documented under the laws of any foreign country, if its crew is employed solely by one or more citizens or residents of the United States or corporations organized under the laws of the United States or of any state.

     "Attached to a regular employer" means:

     (1)  The employee is being offered work each week by the employee's regular employer; or

     (2)  If no work is being offered:

          (A)  The employer is maintaining the individual on the payroll by paying for a medical insurance plan or by maintaining the employee's sick leave or vacation credits; or

          (B)  There is a definite return to work date with the same employer.

     "Base period," with respect to benefit years beginning after June 30, 1951, means the four completed calendar quarters immediately preceding the first day of an individual's benefit year.  With respect to benefit years beginning on and after October 1, 1989, the base period means the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters preceding the first day of an individual's benefit year.

     "Benefits" means the money payments payable to an individual, as provided in this chapter, with respect to the individual's unemployment.

     "Benefit year" means a period of fifty-two consecutive weeks beginning with the first day of the week in which an individual files a new valid claim for benefits; except that the benefit year shall be fifty-three weeks if the filing of a new valid claim would result in overlapping any quarter of the base year of a previously filed new claim.  A subsequent benefit year cannot be established until the expiration of the current benefit year.

     "Calendar quarter" means the period of three consecutive calendar months ending on March 31, June 30, September 30, or December 31, or the equivalent thereof, as the department may by rule prescribe.

     "Contributions" means the money payments required by this chapter to be made into the state unemployment compensation fund by any employing unit on account of having individuals in its employ.

     "Department" means the department of labor and industrial relations.

     "Director" means the director of labor and industrial relations of the State.

     "Employer" means:

     (1)  Any employing unit which for some portion of a day within the current calendar year has or had in employment one or more individuals; and

     (2)  For the effective period of its election pursuant to section 383-77, any other employing unit which has elected to become subject to this chapter.

     "Employing unit" means any individual or type of organization, including the State, any of its political subdivisions, any instrumentality of the State or its political subdivisions, any partnership, association, trust, estate, joint-stock company, insurance company, or corporation, whether domestic or foreign, or the receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, trustee, or successor of any of the foregoing, or the legal representative of a deceased person, which has or subsequent to January 1, 1937, had one or more individuals performing services for it within this State.

     (1)  All individuals performing services within this State for any employing unit which maintains two or more separate establishments within this State shall be deemed to be performing services for a single employing unit for all the purposes of this chapter.

     (2)  Each individual employed to perform or to assist in performing the work of any person in the service of an employing unit shall be deemed to be engaged by the employing unit for all the purposes of this chapter, whether the individual was hired or paid directly by the employing unit or by such person, provided the employing unit had actual or constructive knowledge of the work.

     "Employment office" means a free public employment office or branch thereof operated by the State or any other state as a part of a state-controlled system of public employment offices or by a federal agency charged with the administration of an unemployment compensation program or free public employment offices.

     "Federal Unemployment Tax Act" means chapter 23 of subtitle C of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.

     "Full-time hours" or "full-time work" means a forty-hour workweek unless regarded otherwise according to the standard practice, custom, or agreement in a particular trade, occupation, or business.

     "Fund" means the unemployment compensation fund established by this chapter.

     "Insured work" means employment for employers.

     "Owner-employee" means a person who has performed services for an employing unit as defined in this section, and who is or has been a shareholder owning twenty-five per cent or more of the corporation's common stock, and director or officer, or both, of a corporation which is or was the employing unit or who exercises a substantial degree of control over the direction of corporate activities.

     "Partial unemployment" or "partially unemployed" means the unemployment of any individual who, during a particular week, was still attached to that individual's regular employer, had no earnings or earned less than that individual's weekly benefit amount, and who worked less than or did not work that individual's normal, customary full-time hours for the individual's regular employer because of a lack of full-time work.

     "Recipient of social service payments" includes:

     (1)  A person who is an eligible recipient of social services such as attendant care and day care services; and

     (2)  A corporation or private agency that contracts directly with the department of human services to provide attendant care and day care authorized under the Social Security Act, as amended.

     "Referee" means the referee for unemployment compensation appeals.

     "Registered for work" or "registration for work" means that an individual shall provide information to the employment office to be posted on the department's internet job-matching system, including the individual's name, job skills, education, training, prior employment history and work duties, preferred working conditions, occupational licenses, and other relevant occupational information to facilitate work search efforts by the individual and increase job referrals by the employment office.

     "State" includes the states of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands.

     "Unemployment".  An individual shall be deemed "unemployed" in any week during which the individual performs no services and with respect to which no wages are payable to the individual, or in any week of less than full-time work if the wages payable to the individual with respect to such week are less than the individual's weekly benefit amount.  The department shall prescribe rules applicable to unemployed individuals making such distinctions in the procedures as to total unemployment, part-total unemployment, partial unemployment, of individuals attached to their regular jobs, and other forms of short-time work, as the department deems necessary.  "Week of unemployment" means a week in which an individual is deemed unemployed.

     "Week" means a period of seven consecutive calendar days commencing with Sunday and ending at midnight the following Saturday.

     "Weeks of employment" means all those weeks within each of which the individual has performed services in employment for not less than two days or four hours per week for one or more employers subject to this chapter or with respect to which the individual has received remuneration from one or more employers subject to this chapter in the form of vacation, holiday, or sickness pay or similar remuneration. [L 1939, c 219, pt of §1; am L 1941, c 304, §1, subs 1-7, 9-11, 13, 14; am L 1943, c 160, §1, subs 1, 2; RL 1945, §4202; am L 1947, c 75, §1(1); am L 1951, c 195, §1(1); am L 1953, c 41, §1(1); RL 1955, §93-1; am L 1957, c 115, §1(a) and c 205, §1(a); am L 1959, c 222, §1; am L Sp 1959 2d, c 1, §27; am L 1963, c 174, §3; am L 1964, c 61, §2; HRS §383-1; am L 1969, c 6, §1; am L 1974, c 40, §1; am L 1976, c 157, §1; gen ch 1985; am L 1986, c 32, §1 and c 162, §1; am L 1987, c 119, §2; am L 2003, c 219, §1; am L 2007, c 259, §2; am L 2009, c 170, §§3, 7; am L 2010, c 76, §§2, 3; am L 2011, c 165, §§2, 5; am L 2021, c 1, §1]

Case Notes

  Probationary teachers receiving wages but not performing services during summer are not unemployed.  56 H. 590, 546 P.2d 1 (1976).

  President of family corporation, who during three-week period spent three hours preparing bids, was "unemployed".  66 H. 425, 664 P.2d 734 (1983).

  Severance payments are not wages or remuneration similar to vacation, sickness or holiday pay.  Right of recall does not cause employment relationship to continue.  67 H. 588, 699 P.2d 17 (1985).

  Temporary disability benefits constitute "sickness pay or similar remuneration"; claimants receiving those benefits are not "unemployed".  6 H. App. 195, 715 P.2d 1278 (1986).

  Cited:  35 H. 855, 870 (1941); 46 H. 140, 145, 377 P.2d 715 (1962); 46 H. 164, 166, 377 P.2d 932 (1962).