That's going to be a fight. They can claim firing and go ahead and sign up for unemployment. Likely the company is going to dispute that and at that point the unemployment will continue until there is a hearing between the claimant and a rep from the company. Then someone at unemployment will make a determination and usually that ruling can also be disputed by either party. This goes on until the claimant gives up or wins the final ruling. Also note that if the claimant gets unemployment funds and then loses the final ruling or stops fighting they have to pay those funds back. You can set up a payment plan to pay it back and it doesn't accrue interest. Yes, all of this happened to me in my 20s.