VTDigger is posting regular updates on the coronavirus in Vermont on this page. You can also subscribe here for regular email updates on the coronavirus. If you have any questions, thoughts or updates on how Vermont is responding to Covid-19, contact us at coronavirus@vtdigger.org
More than 70,000 people have filed unemployment claims in Vermont since mid-March, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday, placing unemployment in Vermont above 20%.
Gov. Phil Scott started ordering the closure of businesses on March 16, and the labor department has struggled to keep up with unemployment claims ever since.
Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington told VPR Thursday that unemployment could hit 30% with self-employed workers now eligible for the benefit.
The DOL’s 30-year-old mainframe computer system is so backlogged that the department hasn’t been able to process all of the claims that Vermonters are attempting to file. In reporting the latest numbers, the department is relying on how many claims it has received, not how many have been processed.
Between March 29 and April 4, the department received 22,754 claims. The number of claims received in the same week last year was 519, the department said.
The state processed a record 16,474 claims for unemployment insurance last week. The previous record was set two weeks ago when the state processed 14,700 applications.
Before the pandemic broke out, Vermont’s unemployment rate – which is calculated monthly – hovered around 2.2%, one of the lowest in the nation.
The DOL can’t release an official estimate of the unemployment rate now, said Kyle Thweatt, communications coordinator for the department. If it did, the rate would not reflect all the claims that have been submitted and haven’t yet been processed – or all the claimants who couldn’t get through on the phone or online.
But it’s clear that the unemployment rate has shot up to the highest levels in recorded history, as all non-essential businesses have remained closed in order to suppress the spread of the pandemic.
Since the April unemployment rate only reflects the rate up to mid-March, the full effects of the Covid-19 shutdowns won’t be seen until May. However, if all of the claimants who have successfully gotten through to the department from March 15 onward are taken into account, the rate would be around 21%.
Michael Harrington, the interim director of the DOL, said this week that efforts to update the department’s computer system will result in a faster claims process within weeks. He also expects that the department will soon be able to start accepting claims from people who are self-employed and can’t work – the first time the DOL has ever accepted such claims.
Harrington told the Senate Economic Development Committee Monday that the DOL call center – now staffed with extra help from workers from Green Mountain Power, Vermont Gas, and Efficiency Vermont – is getting 10,000 calls a day.
Some people cannot resolve questions about their online claims without a phone discussion about their particular case, adding to the backlog. The DOL computer crashes repeatedly on Sundays, when claimants are eligible for file for the previous week.
But Harrington said the DOL is hard at work on modernizing and improving its system.
“We are essentially building a new system from scratch,” he said April 7. The DOL is holding a series of Town Hall-type meetings in coming days and weeks to answer employers and workers’ questions about unemployment insurance.
