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Home Claim Determination

Unemployment Claim Determination

Review your wages and hours carefully. If information is wrong, you can request a redetermination of your claim. We will send you an unemployment claim determination letter in the mail. This statement will show you:

  • Weekly benefit amount and your maximum benefits payable – these numbers represent the most you may receive in a week and total amount potentially available on your claim
  • Employers you worked for, and the wages and hours they reported each quarter for you in the base year of your claim – see FAQs below for more information on quarters and base years
  • Your benefit year begin and end dates – you can only claim benefits on this claim for weeks falling between these dates
  • Whether this statement is an initial determination or a redetermination

Your Oregon unemployment benefit claim is available for one year, which is 52 weeks from the week you applied. This 52-week period is called your benefit year. You cannot file another new Oregon claim until that year is over.

The Unemployment Claim Determination will tell you if:

  • You don’t have a valid claim because you worked fewer than 500 hours in your base year
  • You may qualify for an alternate base year claim - see FAQs below for more information on alternate base years
  • We are requesting wages and hours from your former employers

On this page:

A pedestrian bridge crosses Spring Creek at Collier Memorial State Park near Chiloquin. Evergreen trees stand in the background.

What is a quarter?

The year is divided into four fiscal quarters, known as Quarter 1 (Q1), Quarter 2 (Q2), Quarter 3 (Q3), and Quarter 4 (Q4). The quarter lengths are as follows:

  • Q1: January, February and March
  • Q2: April, May and June
  • Q3: July, August and September
  • Q4: October, November and December

What is a base year?

Your base year is the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters preceding your “benefit year,” and your benefit year is the 52-week period starting when you file your initial claim.

For example, if you applied for benefits in October 2022, your regular base year claim would include the third quarter (the three months of July through September) of 2021 through the second quarter of 2022. Therefore, this base year would be from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022. The base year changes with each calendar quarter and is determined by the quarter when you file your initial claim.

What is an alternate base year?

If you do not qualify for unemployment insurance using the standard base year, we will use the four most recently completed calendar quarters, which is known as an alternate base year.

During the adjudication review, we base our decisions on the information we have currently available. If your situation changes after a decision has been issued, we will reopen the investigation and potentially end or reverse our decision.