SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 7, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — The Utah Department of Workforce Services is providing additional unemployment insurance resources, officials said Tuesday.
The new resources include an FAQ for filing your weekly claim and an overview of the unemployment insurance claim process, said a news release from the department.
These are supplemental to the FAQs already available for employees, employers and the CARES Act, the news release said.
“We hope these documents are helpful to individuals as they apply for unemployment insurance benefits,” said Kevin Burt, unemployment insurance division director for the Department of Workforce Services.
“We recognize that for many this is the first time they have used our system and want to provide as much guidance as we can as they wait for their claims to be processed.”
The Unemployment Insurance Division is currently processing a record high number of claims that nearly exceeds the total number of claims in all of 2019, the news release said. Despite these increased demands the team continues to process and deploy benefits. In fact, 85% of claims from the first week of the COVID-19 impact, March 15-21, are now processed thus meeting the 21 day expectation of service during normal circumstances. However, in the second week, March 22-28, unemployment insurance saw a 2,400% increase in claim submissions. As a result, people should expect to see disruptions to normal service levels including high call and chat wait times as well as 21-30 days for processed claims.
The department asks that people continue to apply online and file their weekly claim. If there is an issue or any question about their claim, the Department of Workforce Services will contact them, there is no need for them to contact the department.
The weekly Unemployment Insurance Claims Report will be released on Thursday, April 9, with data for the week of March 29-April 4.
New unemployment insurance resources, in addition to those previously provided, are now available at jobs.utah.gov/covid19.
