There has been continued difficulty getting certain elements of New York State’s unemployment system to work properly.
Complaints from frustrated New Yorkers continue to pile up, as phone lines at the Department of Labor have been jammed up for weeks, according to News10NBC. Some are still waiting for bnefits.
Two employees of a Honeoye Falls restaurant and distillery lost their jobs in September. They filed for unemployment, but at this point – it’s been 16 weeks.
“I was already at a stressful point at eight weeks and now we’ve doubled that, this upcoming Sunday will be 16 weeks of claiming, we certify and every time they say you’ve done all the paperwork we see everything you’ve submitted is correct,” Celia Bednarski told News10NBC. “We called and we waited on the phone for three and a half hours while we were driving in a car and the guy hung up on me for talking, he asked me to stop talking and hung up on me.”
She and others say it’s been harder-and-harder to get through to someone. And at this point no one has explained to them why their claims haven’t been resolved.
Meanwhile, in a statement to News10NBC – NYSDOL touted the total number of people who have received benefits, and the challenges they saw in the spring. “Millions of claims have been processed since March, and in the rare instance that a claim is delayed, it is likely because the claimant provided answers that must be investigated, additional information or documentation is needed to process the application, or a specialist has to adjudicate complex issues that could disqualify someone from receiving benefits,” they said in a statement published by News10NBC.
Since that investigation, the Bednarski’s received a follow-up call from DOL.
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