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Trade Adjustment Assistance and Trade Readjustment Allowances

Last update: April 20, 2019. Discussed on the HPAA's Transition Forum (not on the Benefits or Finance forums.) 

If you recently lost your job, you may qualify for Trade Adjustment Assistance or Trade Readjustment Allowances. These are government programs for specific groups of employees whose jobs were affected by foreign trade.

Key points:

1. Depends on the specifics of what happened to the positions of a particular group of employees.

2. You have to work on this yourself. No company is going to publicize that they are moving jobs overseas.

TAA (Trade Adjustment Assistance)

- Definition: "The TAA Program seeks to provide workers, who are adversely affected by foreign trade, with opportunities to obtain the skills, credentials, resources, and support necessary for future in-demand jobs."

- Federal website You can read the actual petitions online. Search for "Hewlett Packard" for HPE or "HP" for HP Inc.  https://www.doleta.gov/tradeact/

- Petition process: https://www.doleta.gov/tradeact/petitioners/petitionprocess.cfm

TRA (Trade Readjustment Allowances)

- Definition: "Income support payments to individuals who have exhausted Unemployment Compensation and whose jobs were affected by foreign imports as determined by a certification of group coverage issued by the Department of Labor."

- Federal website   https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/tra.asp

 

Comments from members: (Personally-identifiable details removed.)

"You won’t find any info within HPI or HPE. You need to inquire at your local unemployment office or your state Labor Department. These are Federal Benefits administered at the state level. I had to do the leg work myself."

"Not everyone is eligible but if you can identify your local TRA administrator they can help you determine if you are eligible and if there is an existing petition for benefits in place that you can leverage or if you need to initiate a new petition and submit it for review / approval."

"Go to the unemployment office and register for the TAA/TRA.
1. Need to tell them you have been impacted by the layoffs from HPE. Make sure you know the date of last work.
2. If you register for TAA you need to go enroll in the school. They pay for your school.
3. TRA is if you find a job that pays less than what you made at HPE -- they pay you the difference.
4. Make sure you receive a case # and got approval for the resources.
5. I was once registered in school -- but didn't continue because I got a job that paid well."

"The unemployment office (Texas Workforce Commission in Austin) ...is doing some further research but believe it is past the deadline for me... (19 months.) I've also spoken with [an IT training company] which is very familiar with the TAA process and they are trying to help me navigate this process as well."

"You probably won't get any notification. You should search to see if a trade act petition has been filed... It's been a few years, but my recollection is that once a petition has been filed and accepted, you can apply for retraining benefits. Your local state employment agency may have more information, and may have even filed a petition."

"After many years at HP went back and got an MS in computer science under the trade act."

"I learned about it at my state career center in Massachusetts. You do need to apply for this program in a certain time frame. You need to register for an approved training program within I think 20 weeks of your separation date. A couple of other benefits (at least in Massachusetts) included extending my unemployment by 5 months and the health care I had to pay was now a federal tax credit.  I was fortunate to be accepted into the program, got some additional training, used the extra unemployment and the tax credit. It took me a while but I was able to land a new position eventually. Definitely not something that HPE tells people about. So use the career center resources as much as you can."
 

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