Am I required to reveal my employment status to my soon to be ex employer. See details?

It seems like ti will be so easy to verify that you have been hired to work at the same place that I would be afraid of being found out. Is it worth the two weeks’ pay, however attractive, to risk an unpleasant conflict?

Is there anything in writing anywhere about their severance policy?

The old company will barely speak to any of us, so we can’t get any answers.

Then I say, fuck ‘em. If it is that important to them, they can research whether you’re still working there before they cut you the check.

I wouldn’t sign anything that states that “I am not employed” if I was, as that would be personally dishonorable to me. And I expect that there would be some sort of assertion required from you to collect the money. (Though why this policy is being instituted in the first place seems odd. Severance is usually paid without regard to “what happens next”; it’s a payment made by the former employer as an acknowledgement of faithful service as well as a realization that change is hard for many people, who will now have to give up whatever seniority they had a achieved with the former employer, find new employment in the first place, and then make whatever adjustments that calls for.)

However, if you can simply ignore the request – which they are bound to make, I think – then maybe they will pay it by default.

Since your only need to change in this case seems to be “how to set up direct deposit of paychecks from the new employer”, and you don’t really have much other “loss” to deal with, I would suggest that you simply grin and thank the employment gods that you’ve landed on your feet – and good for you in that regard! – and let it go. (The word might get back to your new employer if you attempt to “defraud” the former employer, and that would get your new job started off wrong-footed, for sure.)

I believe that people laid off at my workplace were told they would get severance pay and later told they wouldn’t if they got another job but I can’t swear to it.

I’d avoid saying anything and as @CWOTUS wrote, I wouldn’t sign anything. How will they know you now have a job? Is it in a contract somewhere or conditions of employment that you must disclose this information? If you’re asked directly, I don’t think I’d lie, but don’t go out of your way to tell them.

I would seem to me, that the severance pay is from your old employer as required to end your employment. Your new employment has nothing to do with them. So unless asked, say nothing. Did you sign an agreement to those terms? Or were they imposed on you?

It really sounds more like the “severance” is actually being regarded by them as being more like unemployment coverage since they’re linking it to that.

Is this even legal for them to do? Severance and unemployment insurance are totally separate issues and yet they’re attempting to conflate them.

It’s unclear from the details you posted as to who precisely told you that you could only collect the severance if you were unemployed.

Was this official in some way or more like “from the grapevine”?

If it’s the latter and there’s nothing in writing or official announcement clearly made to everybody, then I think youre fine to get the severance since there is really no reason why you should consider it anything else.

As long as you’re not required to perjure yourself in writing to obtain that check, then take it and shame on them for trying to renege upon their promised severance deal.

However, if at some point in the next few weeks they would choose to make it an official policy (in writing) that having a new job would preclude you from the severance then you’d have every right to threaten a legal challenge to that and if push comes to shove, take them to small claims court.

What they’re doing is not right either ethically or (I suspect) legally.