How do you get approved for unemployment NYS Department of Labor - what are the requirements?

The NYS Department of Labor has specific eligibility requirements you must meet. First, you need sufficient work history - generally 18 weeks of employment in the base period earning at least $2,700 total. Second, you must be unemployed through no fault of your own (not fired for misconduct). Third, you must be able and available to work and actively searching for employment. You'll need to file weekly claims and document your job search activities.

You need to register with the NYS Department of Labor job search system and keep a detailed log of all your job search activities. The requirement is typically 3 work search contacts per week, but this can vary. Make sure you're documenting everything - applications, interviews, networking events, even job fairs count. Keep records because they can audit your job search at any time.

Getting through to someone at NYS Department of Labor to check your claim status or ask questions can be really frustrating with their phone lines always busy. I was stuck trying to reach them for weeks until someone told me about claimyr.com - it's a service that calls the unemployment office for you and gets you connected to an agent. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI that shows how it works. Saved me hours of redials and busy signals when I needed to verify my eligibility requirements.

DON'T TRUST THE SYSTEM!!! They'll find any excuse to deny your claim and make you jump through hoops. I was 'approved' then they suddenly said I owed them money back. The whole thing is designed to frustrate people into giving up. Document EVERYTHING because they will try to trip you up later.

basically just fill out the application honestly and do your weekly claims on time. if you worked enough and didn't get fired for doing something bad you should be fine