California unemployment call centers need 2 more months to finish COVID-19 expansion
California’s embattled unemployment agency will combine its call centers, which should make it much easier for claimants to get help with more personal, often vexing questions — but not until October.
In the meantime, the state will continue to boost its staffing on its call lines. The line where employees handle more complex questions will be available from 8 a.m. until noon Monday through Friday. Its other line, which provides largely technical assistance, is available every day from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Consumers have been complaining to state lawmakers and The Sacramento Bee for months that they have tremendous difficulty reaching anyone on those lines.
Gov. Gavin Newsom directed the Employment Development Department to set up the 12-hour line in April to improve access, but staffers on that line are generally not equipped to handle more complicated issues.
The lines remain jammed. In mid-April, 2% to 3% of calls were being answered, and the line to help people with personal issues was staffed by 100 employees.
In mid-August, the percentage of answered calls was up to 40%, still well below the industry standard of 80%, though it was not clear how many employees were available on the four-hour, more personal, phone line.
Sharon Hilliard, EDD director, detailed the ongoing efforts to improve the system at an Assembly budget subcommittee hearing Monday.
She said the combined call center will have 3,700 people to answer questions. About 1,800 will be employment program representatives who Hilliard said would “work on the more specific, complex cases.”
She said about 1,400 would be “office technicians that provide general assistance, claim updates, password changes, general information.” Another 500 would be agents from Deloitte, which has a contract to help expand the call center.
The 1,800 case workers would be a huge increase from the 100 who were available in April, May and June, as unemployment ballooned to record levels. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was one phone line available, another 250 provided technical assistance.
Then came what Hilliard called “a tidal wave” no one foresaw. Not only did the volume of claims multiply, but the agency had to manage new federal programs aimed at helping unemployment people.
Asked by Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Laguna Beach, how many such case workers are available now, Hilliard could not answer. “We don’t have it broken out by August but I will send this to you following the hearing,” she said.
The agency has been inundated with calls — about 14 million a week in March and April, and 6.7 million last month.
As of the end of July, 75% of claimants had received their first payment within 21 days from the time they filed for benefits. The maximum benefit is $450 a week.
State jobless claimants have received $67 billion in benefits since the pandemic sent the economy reeling in mid-March. The 10.6 million California claims processed are roughly three times as many as during the unemployment peak of the Great Recession in 2010.
Prior to the pandemic, the agency was answering about 54% of calls. Why only 54%, asked Chairman Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove.
Because, Hilliard said, the federal government usually does not fund call center activities, and “We didn’t have funding to support anybody beyond that. We had to focus our resources on paying people.”
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