Colorado officials struggle to keep up with jobless claims - Denver Business Journal:

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The wave of layoffs has overwhelmed Colorado’es unemployment insurance system, with thousands of workerss unable to get through by telephone to file The (CDLE) on Wednesday announced a series of steps to improvs its responsiveness, including having its staff work on Sundays, reassigning staff to the Unemploymentt Call Center to handle phones, extendin filing and call-back deadlines for claimants, and addingb online features to enable claimants to resolver some issues without speaking directly to a claims “This turbulent economy is placing a greart deal of strain on Colorado workera and is taxing our system like never before,” CDLE Executive Director Don Marexs said in a statement.
“Thw steps we are taking now will help us maximiz existing federal resources and deliver benefits more efficiently in thesedcritical times.” A total of 64,627 Coloradans filed continuing claims for jobless benefits in the week endesd Feb. 14, the highest numbedr since recordkeeping began in 1987 and up sharplyfrom 34,8934 in the same week a year ago. Colorado’sd unemployment insurance program hasn’t been hit as hard as thosee inother states, CDLE officials said. But the recession’s impacty has been unprecedented. More than 6,000 initialk claims are being filed each compared with an average ofabout 2,900 a year ago.
Even durinvg Colorado’s severe downturn in 2002 and 2003 the peak average number of new weekly claimxs was lessthan 4,400. the number of continuing jobless claims rose topped 5 milliob for the first time in the weekended Feb. 14, the highesrt number since recordkeeping began in according to Labor Department datareleasedc Thursday.