Unemployment bottleneck irks Oregonians

Unemployment bottleneck irks Oregonians



Oregon's unemployment phone lines are completely jammed. Newly announced benefits have drawn tens of thousands of callers.
The state employment office says it's sorry, but it just can't handle the call volume all at once.
Emergency Benefits link
The state notified 40,000 people who may be eligible for a newly approved extension of unemployment benefits.
Those people are calling in their claims in droves.
Though employees are working hour after hour to process the calls
people are still frustrated because the phone lines seem perpetually
busy.
"It was busy, busy, busy, busy for all day Monday half the day Tuesday," said Kelly Cruikshank.
"We're still overwhelmed with phone calls," said Employmnet
Department spokesman Tom Fuller. "So people are getting busy signals. I
tried this morning and got a busy signal and it's not the lines we had
Verizon check out the phone lines. They're operating okay.They're just
literally at over-capacity."
The state says it'll simply take longer to process the calls and the claims.
But it promises no one will lose money from this issue.
All eligible claims, said Fuller, will be back-dated to this week.
That may frustrate unemployed citizens who in cash flow crunch but it's the best the state can do right now.
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Phone-system-bottleneck-frustrates-unemployed-Oregonians-120426159.html

I gotta say, if it was me? I don't think I'd be all that horribly upset. People are doing their best with the equipment/staff they have. I could certainly hang on another week or so if I KNEW that help was coming. I'd be jumping for joy just to have the guarantee that I was getting some much needed relief.

A little shimmer of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. Yeah cinKY I'd be doing the jig myself. Think they just got the green light for a huge wind farm, out there also.

I don't know if Oregon has the email option but I have found it so much better to send an email with my question or problem. I have always gotten a response within 24 hours. Not nearly the aggravation as those damn phones. I don't know of any state unemployment office that is not severely understaffed.

concernedinKY wrote:I gotta say, if it was me? I don't think I'd be all that horribly upset. People are doing their best with the equipment/staff they have. I could certainly hang on another week or so if I KNEW that help was coming. I'd be jumping for joy just to have the guarantee that I was getting some much needed relief.

100% agree w/CIK. The workers in Labor Depts across all the 50 states do the best they can. It's not their fault that Congress (& the state legislatures) take their sweet time passing UC bills.