Jobless people overload benefits-filing systems

ALBANY, N.Y. — Electronic-unemployment-filing systems have crashed in at least three states in recent days amid an unprecedented crush of thousands of newly jobless Americans seeking benefits, and other states were adjusting their systems to avoid being next.

About 4.5 million Americans are collecting jobless benefits, a 26-year high, so the Web sites and phone systems now commonly used to file for benefits are being tested like never before.

Agencies have been scrambling to hire hundreds more workers to handle the calls.

Systems in New York, North Carolina and Ohio were shut down completely by technical glitches and heavy volume, and labor officials in several other states are reporting higher-than-normal use.

Several states have added staff to their call centers to handle the surge, including Ohio, Oklahoma and Washington.

Washington state set a record in December for the most — more than 90,000 — new unemployment claims in one month, eclipsing the record 72,000 new claims set in December 2001, just after 9/11.

Washington's Web site and phone lines have exceeded volume capacity at times, with lengthy delays but no system crashes, said Employment Security Department spokeswoman Sheryl Hutchison. Some callers have reported waiting on hold up to an hour, the maximum time before the system automatically drops a call, she said.

"It's been very frustrating," she said.

In the past five months, Hutchison said, 100 new workers have been added to call centers in Seattle and Spokane, "and the state is still hiring," she said.

Pennsylvania has hired temporary workers and expanded the hours of its unemployment-benefits hotline to accommodate a surge in the number of calls, going from 600 employees to more than 800. Officials hope to eventually have 1,100 workers answering calls.

The nation's unemployment rate in November zoomed to 6.7 percent, a 15-year high. Economists predict it would rise to 7 percent in December, with another 500,000 jobs probably cut last month. The government will release its monthly employment report on Friday.

Some states attribute the increase in call volume in part to an extension of federal emergency-unemployment compensation from 13 weeks to 20 weeks in late November. More than 54,000 Pennsylvanians had exhausted their federal benefits after 13 weeks by the time that occurred, said David Smith, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

"It really was a perfect storm," he said.

Callers to Michigan's main phone line handling applications for jobless benefits got an "all circuits are busy now" message Tuesday afternoon.

Officials in Michigan, which had the nation's highest jobless rate at 9.6 percent in November, recently began urging applicants to seek benefits through a state Internet site instead. Michigan counted about 473,000 people as unemployed in November, up from about 370,000 a year ago.

Unemployment agencies from Kentucky to Alaska also are reporting long hold times for callers and slowdowns for those filing online because of higher volume.

North Carolina's Web site crashed twice this week under a rush of claims as that state set one-day records for both the amount of benefits paid and the number of transactions.

California has seen a record number of calls to an 800 number over the last few weeks.

Seattle Times staff writer Charles Brown contributed to this report.