Vancouver — The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded federal funds to Washington’s Employment Security Department this week to hire two new employees who will audit employers who fail to report wages paid to workers and avoid paying unemployment taxes.
The new employees will work to detect an estimated 430 misclassified employees and nearly $7 million in unreported wages each year, the department said in a news release. With the new hires, the agency will have eight auditors in its Underground Economy Unit.
The grant is part of $10 million in state grants that aim to identify instances where employers misclassify employees or fail to report the wages paid to workers, ESD said.
