AP
Published: January 6, 2009
COLUMBUS, Ohio—The unemployment claims systems in Ohio and at least two other states buckled this week under an onslaught of telephone calls and Web site hits from people who lost their jobs at the end of 2008, officials said Tuesday. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said its telephone hot line generally receives about 7,500 calls a day, but has been getting about 80,000 each of the past two days.
The hot line was up and running normally after a crush of callers and technical problems made it difficult to get through beginning Monday, said spokesman Dennis Evans. He said the section of the state’s Web site that enables people to make claims online remained down. “With the numbers of people being laid off at end of the year, the systems are just being overwhelmed,“ said spokeswoman Traci Bell-Thomas. Unemployment claims systems in New York and North Carolina were experiencing similar problems due to a surge in callers.
In Ohio, officials are backdating claims to the beginning of the week due to difficulties claimants may have accessing the system by deadlines. Evans said the agency is working to add 50 temporary workers at call centers throughout the state to help out the normal 150 who normally take claims. Callers who will have to wait longer than 20 minutes receive a message advising them to call back. The department also is reviewing the system to determine ways to limit calls to the hot line and, on Monday, initiated a separate, toll-free line to be used only for callers who need to reset a PIN or password. “We are working as diligently as we can to make sure that we make the fixes to get people their benefits as soon as possible,“ Evans said.
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