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Tallahassee, Fla:
The state of Florida is hiring more workers, adding phone lines and expanding its hours of operation to try to keep up with a record number of calls for unemployment benefits.
The calls are pouring in at this jobless claims call center in Tallahassee. It’s one of three such hotlines operated around Florida by the Agency for Workforce Innovation and callers are urged to be patient. The wait times have grown to an hour or more during the busiest times.
The crush of calls from the newly jobless is happening nationwide. In recent days, several states were so overloaded with calls and claims, their electronic unemployment filing systems crashed.
That has not happened in Florida, but state officials are holding their breath because the computer mainframe handling unemployment claims is 30 years old and won’t take many more technical improvements.
Florida’s unemployment claims doubled in 2008 with more than 1.3 million claims. The Agency for Workforce Innovation has recently added about 350 phone lines and hired more than 300 workers to help handle the load. Another 81 workers are being brought in next month to help out.
Director Monesia Brown says the agency is working harder to handle the unprecedented demand for unemployment assistance.
Brown says her agency has expanded the hours of the call centers on weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and added Saturday hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. She says workers are now processing claims seven days a week.
Mondays and Tuesdays have the highest call volume, so Brown encourages people to call Wednesday through Saturday, or use the Internet.
You can file unemployment claims, extensions or recertifications on the Web at www.floridajobs.org.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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