The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training's unemployment call center, swamped with calls from out-of-work Rhode Islanders, will be closed to incoming calls on Friday -- and on certain other dates this month -- to try to cut down on its backlog.

Closing the center to the calls will allow the center's staff to focus, on those dates, on processing claims for benefits and on returning e-mail inquiries from the unemployed, said Raymond A. Filippone, the Department of Labor and Training's associate director who oversees unemployment programs.

The agency has received a high volume of calls, e-mails and claims for benefits in recent weeks, especially since the federal government decided to extend certain benefits programs.

"Rhode Island was one of the first states in the nation to implement this latest unemployment insurance extension, thereby assisting thousands of Rhode Islanders who had exhausted or were on the brink of exhausting their benefits," Sandra M. Powell, the agency's director, said in a statement issued Wednesday.
"However, the process of implementing this important program has been time-intensive and has resulted in a backlog of approximately 3,000 unemployment insurance claims filed online," she said.
Powell added, "It is in the best interest of all our customers that we take actions now to reduce this backlog as quickly as possible. To accomplish this, we need to devote more time to online claims processing."
In addition to Friday, the call center plans to close to incoming calls on the morning of Dec. 16, and all day Dec. 17. The center will then close to incoming calls every Thursday thereafter "for as long as the volume of online claims warrants," the agency said in a statement.

The agency is also implementing longer hours on days it is open, Filippone said. For example, the call center normally is open for calls on Mondays and Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. But it will soon be open those days from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., he said.

The agency is also in the process of hiring more workers for the call center.
Rhode Island has the third highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 12.9 percent. About 35,000 Rhode Islanders are currently collecting some type of unemployment benefit through the agency, Filippone said.

Source : newsblog.projo.com