Need to reopen ESD claim after 3-week temporary job ended?

You need to reopen your claim since you stopped filing weekly claims while working. Log into your eServices account, click on 'Restart your claim' (not 'File a new claim'). You'll need to report your earnings for those weeks you worked. Make sure to do this ASAP - ideally during the week you want benefits to restart. The system will walk you through updating your work history with the temp job details. You shouldn't have any waiting week since you already served that with your original claim, as long as your benefit year hasn't ended (benefit years last 52 weeks from when you first applied).

OMG the same thing happened to me in January!!! I took a 2 week job thinking it might turn permanent but it didn't. When I tried to restart my claim the system kept giving me errors and it was SUCH a headache. I think what finally worked was calling them and explaining the situation. But be prepared to wait forever to talk to someone...

You definitely need to report ALL earnings for the week you're claiming, even if it was just a few days. ESD looks at the week as a whole (Sunday through Saturday). So if your last day was Thursday, you'd report those earnings on that week's claim. When you reopen your claim, you'll see an option to report earnings. Be accurate with the hours and gross pay (before taxes). They'll reduce your weekly benefit amount based on what you earned, but you might still get a partial payment if you didn't earn much those 3 days. Also, just to clarify what the previous person said - you reopen a claim when you've stopped filing for a while but are still in your benefit year. You file a new claim only when your benefit year has expired.

My neighbor just went thru this and ESD totally messed up his claim. took like 6 weeks to fix and he didn't get any money. the whole system is broken tbh

Spent 3 hours trying to get someone at ESD on the phone last month for a similar situation. Finally found this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that got me through to an actual ESD agent in about 20 minutes. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ?si=26TzE_zGms-DODN3 Wasn't sure if it would actually work, but it saved me from days of busy signals and hangups. The agent was able to process my reopen request right away and explained exactly what I needed to do about my temporary work.

I had a similar situation in 2024 and what tripped me up was that I didn't realize I needed to list my temp job as a new employer. When reopening, make sure you have the company name, address, phone number, first/last work date, and reason for separation ready. If you select "temporary job ended" as your reason for separation, you generally won't have issues with adjudication (that's when they investigate job separations). Also important: if your benefit year is close to ending, double-check the date in your eServices account. If you're within a few weeks of that end date, the process might be different.

To directly answer your follow-up question: Yes, you'll reopen first, then file for the week including those last 3 days worked (reporting those earnings), and then you'll be back to regular weekly claims after that. Make sure you're also keeping track of your job search activities - you still need 3 per week starting the week after your last work day. So if Thursday was your last day, you need 3 job search activities for the following week.