Number of Illinois residents who have filed for unemployment continues to rise
The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) has released new statewide data showing the department processed over 141,000 new initial unemployment claims for the week ending April 11.
Since March 1, the department has processed more than 650,000 initial unemployment claims, 12 times more than the number of claims over the corresponding time period last year, when it processed 53,000 initial unemployment claims.
The claims are also five times greater than the amount processed during the first six weeks of the Great Recession.
Earlier in the week, Pritzker addressed the troubles the state government had with unemployment claims and outlined what they have done to remedy the issue.
“Remember that the computer system that was built to handle unemployment claims for our state was built in 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession, and it was built with the idea that unemployment would never really exceed what we saw in 2008 and 2009,” Pritzker said Monday. “But today, we are seeing five times that number of claims.”
Since the spike in unemployment claims, the IDES website and computer systems have been upgraded, the state has established an outside call center with 200 additional agents and hired retired workers to process claims.
According to Pritzker, IDES staff have worked a combined 6,500 hours of overtime and have processed more than 273,000 unemployment claims. That, however, is only a little more than half of the 513,000 new claims that have been filed during that time.
On Monday, GOP lawmakers met via conference call with reporters to demand immediate fixes to the problems.
“Since the stay-at-home order has been issued, my office has been flooded with calls from constituents that have been laid off and are desperate for help in filing for unemployment insurance,” Mike Marron of Fithian said. “We get at least 10 people a day who call and ask, ‘How can I get my application processed?’ Many of these individuals were unexpectedly notified that they were out of work due to how fast the situation materialized.”
To date, IDES has suspended the employment services requirement to register with Illinois Job Link if their unemployment is due to a temporary lay-off resulting from COVID-19, and modified the “able and available to work” requirement to those who have become unemployed due to COVID-19, waived the waiting week for claimants, and implemented the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), which provides an additional $600 each week in federally funded benefits to eligible Illinoisans.
In the coming weeks, IDES will roll-out the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, which provides up to 13 weeks’ worth of federally funded benefits to individuals who have exhausted their regular state unemployment benefits.
The department is also contracting with Deloitte to launch a new benefit system in May for individuals who are not typically covered by the state’s unemployment.
