My understanding is that incompetence is not a justifiable cause for firing and denying unemployment benefits. The fire-able behavior has to be "intentional" in most states.

>My understanding is that incompetence is not a justifiable cause for firing and denying unemployment benefits. The fire-able behavior has to be "intentional" in most states.

Check your state. In my state, it is. Being fired for performance reasons disqualifies you from benefits. My company is "nice" enough that they openly state they will not challenge unemployment benefit claims if they fire you for that reason.

My wife and I own a business in a rather pro-employer state and even our DOL does not consider being bad at your job just cause for denying unemployment. We had an employee use company resources to actively plan opening a competing business half a mile away and still lost our request that he be denied unemployment benefits after we fired him for gross misconduct.

If you get unemployment benefits denied, especially in a very pro-employee state like California or New York, you certainly did something to justify it.

I'm in Texas. I've never experienced this myself, and haven't ever had to apply for unemployment benefits (knock on wood), but I know plenty of people (5-6 in as many years, all with different companies) who have been fired or laid off and none of them has ever received unemployment, even after fighting their former employer on it.

My point is that you should NEVER count on getting it, and especially not with getting in quickly. I got laid off in Michigan and was eventually accepted, but by that point I had burned through all my savings (I was pretty young, so there wasn't much to burn through) and already accepted a job here in Texas. It was a nice bonus, but didn't really help me with my unemployment situation in any way.