It works like this: Every year you have to pay a percentage of your total payroll as a tax, called Unemployment Insurance. If someone is fired or laid off, its

It works like this: Every year you have to pay a percentage of your total payroll as a tax, called Unemployment Insurance. If someone is fired or laid off, its from this pool their unemployment checks are drawn. The percentage each company pay is based off a table. On this table there's 2 rates listed for each business size (its tiered, bigger businesses pay more). Rates last year for my company were around 1.7% and 3.2%, IIRC. So, if you fired >=1 person in that year, you have to pay the higher rate. If you fired nobody, you pay the lower rate. Note: if you fired 1 or 10 people it doesn't matter - you're paying the higher rate.