Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Colorado Unemployment Call Centers Playing Catch Up
In many states, call centers that support unemployed workers are struggling with their caseloads, even in states where the number of new claims has gone down. In Colorado in early July, 14,739 people filed new claims for unemployment support, a number that has gone down from the peak of late March and early April. Despite the drop in new filings, the state’s unemployment system is struggling to keep up. All in all, about 603,000 Colorado residents have filed initial unemployment claims since mid-March.
Many users are reporting that they are unable to get through to the unemployment department after weeks of calling, according to a recent article in the Denver Post.
“The state’s traditional call center and a separate center for the federally funded pandemic unemployment assistance program together field an average of 12,000 unique calls daily,” according to the Denver Post’s Joe Rubino. “Between the 200 and 250 agents working in those two call centers and a callback request form added to the unemployment division website earlier this year, the office can handle about 4,000 callers per day, said Jeff Fitzgerald, director of the state’s unemployment division.”
In short, the department simply doesn’t have the personnel or the infrastructure to support the tens of thousands of calls coming into the call center. Coloradans are trying other means to get through, including showing up at unemployment offices without appointments, and even calling other departments in the hope of being transferred to a live agent who can help.
While the state has hired 85 new agents in recent months, many existing agents have left the job. The complexities involving a mix of state and (constantly changing) federal programs means that it can take up to 12 weeks to train new agents.
For some states, the bottleneck lies in the system used to cross-check claims with other states. In Colorado, claims are checked against a national database that allows officials to determine if a worker has earned income in other states. This system, said Colorado spokespeople, is unable to keep up with demand.
Edited by Maurice Nagle