Florida Unemployment Work Search Requirements

Florida does not just pay you to be unemployed — you have to prove you are actively looking for work every single week. Miss the requirement and your benefits can be suspended without warning, sometimes retroactively.

How Many Contacts Per Week

The number depends on where you live:

• Counties with populations above 75,000: 5 employer contacts per week, or an in-person visit to a CareerSource center to meet with a representative and access reemployment services
• Counties with populations of 75,000 or fewer: 3 employer contacts per week

A CareerSource center visit can substitute for the weekly employer contacts, but you must report in person, meet with a representative, and access the center's reemployment services. Online browsing on the CareerSource website does not count.

What Counts as a Valid Contact

Each contact must be a genuine effort to obtain work. For every contact you submit during biweekly certification, Reconnect asks for details including:

• Date of contact
• Type of contact and method (online application, email, in person, phone)
• Employer, agency, website, or contact name
• Name of the person contacted
• Phone number, email, or fax
• Physical address or website
• Type of work you were looking for and position applied for
• Result of the contact; if hired, the promised hire date

Repeating the same employer at the same location within three consecutive weeks is not allowed unless the employer has indicated since your initial contact that it is hiring. FloridaCommerce runs random audits of work search logs, and knowingly padding contacts with fake or recycled entries to obtain benefits can lead to fraud penalties.

Who Is Exempt

Some claimants are temporarily exempt from work search requirements:

• Temporary layoff with recall: You must be temporarily laid off and returning to the same employer within 8 weeks
• New job starting soon: Verified start date within 6 weeks
• Union hiring hall members: If you customarily obtain work through a union hiring hall, reporting daily to the hall can satisfy the work search requirement
• Approved training program: Enrolled in a FloridaCommerce-approved program

If no exemption applies, you can meet the weekly work search requirement through employer contacts or a qualifying in-person CareerSource visit.

Employ Florida Registration

Separate from your work search contacts, most claimants must register with Employ Florida at EmployFlorida.com unless an exemption applies. This means creating a profile, entering your work history, providing a valid email address, and uploading or building a resume. Simply creating an account without completing the profile does not satisfy the requirement.

RESEA Appointments

Some claimants are selected for the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) program — a federally funded program targeting people likely to exhaust benefits. If selected, your notice will give the date, time, method, and location for required services, which may be in person, remote, virtual, or by telephone. Failure to attend a required service can adversely affect benefits.

RESEA is separate from your biweekly benefit requests. If you are required to participate in reemployment services, the usual work search contact requirements do not apply; complete the services listed in your notice.

The Florida Unemployment Claim Guide includes a fillable work search log designed around Florida's county-based contact rules, with fields for every detail Reconnect asks during certification.

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