New NYS unemployment website makes debut

While New York state has been touting its new website for filing unemployment insurance claims as going a long way toward opening up the log jams that have left many newly unemployed New Yorkers frustrated and angry in recent weeks, a significant fact was missing from the Department of Labor’s announcement that the new system would be ready for use as of 7:30 this morning: You first must set up an account with New York state in order to use the system.

People who signed on to the portal and attempted to open the unemployment insurance application website were met with a screen saying “Login.” When clicked, they were shown a smaller screen calling for a “username” and “password.” Only through trial and error could a link to a “Don’t have an Account?” page be found, allowing them to begin the process of opening an account with the state.

The state brought in Google Cloud, Deloitte and Verizon to work on improving the reliability of the state”™s online and telephone-based unemployment insurance application systems that were swamped as a result of soaring unemployment due to the COVID-19 crisis. It has expanded the call center”™s weekday hours from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and now has Saturday and Sunday hours from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The number of servers that support the online filing system have been increased from four to more than 60.

Applicants can file on certain days of the week according to the first letter of their last name. Filing for A – F is on Mondays; G – N on Tuesdays; O – Z on Wednesdays; and those who miss the correct alphabetical day can file Thursdays through Sundays.

The Labor Department will begin rolling out a “call back” feature that allows state representatives to telephonel people with incomplete unemployment insurance applications and finish their applications over the phone. The state said its revised system was designed to eliminate a requirement that applicants make a telephone call to the state in order to complete the application process.

The changes to the state’s unemployment insurance application system followed yesterday’s release of new unemployment statistics by the U.S. Department of Labor.

In the week ending April 4, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment was 6,606,000, a decrease of 261,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 6,867,000 claims.

New York state had 345,246 claims, a drop of 21,349 from the 366,595 recorded during the week ended March 28.

Connecticut had a modest gain of 191 claims and stood at 33,418 for the week ended April 4, compared with 33,227 for the week ended March 28.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 5.1% for the week ending March 28, an increase of 3 percentage points from the previous week’s unrevised rate.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending March 28 were in California (+871,992), New York (+286,596), Michigan (+176,329), Florida (+154,171), Georgia (+121,680), Texas (+120,759), and New Jersey (+90,438), while the largest decreases were in Nevada (-20,356), Rhode Island (-8,047), and Minnesota (-6,678).