This can be subtitled, “Only in New Mexico.” Here is a headline from this morning’s Santa Fe New Mexican:
“Deluge of unemployment calls has state hiring to keep up.”
Except it’s not only in New Mexico. A Google search for articles shows that Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, California, South Carolina – virtually every state in the country – is experiencing a similar phenomenon.
“Many state unemployment offices are backlogged processing claims, with some states reporting a two or three week delay. However, new staff is being added and the delay should ease up in the near future,” said one job search website.
In North Carolina the state’s Employment Security Commission web site is having technical issues and has crashed at least twice under a rush of claims as that state set one-day records for both the amount of benefits paid and the number of transactions.
State unemployment phone lines are buckling under unprecedented call volume, with thousands of calls going unanswered daily and hold times stretching to hours rather than minutes. Colorado is moving to hire additional workers because currently their unemployment office is able to only handle about half of the estimated 5,000 calls it's getting daily. In Maine the governor approved the hiring of dozens of new people to handle the deluge of unemployed workers despite having a hiring freeze in place.
The New Mexican article states that, “The department has 43 customer-service representatives, but Gov. Bill Richardson has directed the department to move ahead with 20 "emergency hires" and find about 30 state employees in other departments with similar skills who can temporarily help answer calls, starting as soon as next week.”
If they’re adding 50 new workers to the existing staff of 43 that means New Mexico is more than doubling the department work force. So in a weird kind of circular way unemployment is actually creating jobs.
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