New data shows how long Oregonians are waiting on the phone for unemployment benefits

Currently, about 100,00 Oregonians filed for unemployment at the end of last week on April 4.

Case.

Many if you have been calling our newsroom saying filing for un-employment has been a job in its-self.

Kezi nine news reporter connor mccarthy is live here in the studio and shows new numbers from the oregon department of employment about what they're finding in terms of the number of claims filed and wait times.

We've heard it from you and we've seen it around the country.

America's unemployment system is stressed and the department of employments new data backs that claim.

This graph behind me shows the number of claims filed since 2006.

This gray area is the recesion and as you can see-- over a two year period... unemployment claims only peaked at 20 thousand in a week.

But since march... claims have surpassed that by 5 times that number to 100 thousand.

Looking closer at the current employment numbers... this graph shows the call volume to unemployment centers.

The light blue on this graph is calls received and the green is the call answered.

On the left starting on march 18th, when things started to shut down... calls were being answered 75 percent of the time.

But as we get a closer look here you can see the number of calls recieved drops off below 25-hundred a day but so do calls answered.

As of today... only 37 percent of calls recieved are actually answered.

Now if you happen to get on the phone with someone... this graph shows you how long average wait times are.

As you can see since march... wait times were low and averaged about 43 minutes.

But as time goes on...the average wait times increase as less calls were being answered.

Today the average wait time is around two hours.

But this is an average so some people are waiting even longer.

When it comes to initial claims filed versus the ones processed... this next graph shows how the department has been handling the influx since march 14th.

The blue color is calims filed at the end of a week and the gold is actually processed.

On march 14th 29-- hundred claims were filed and 42- hundred were processed.

Taking a closer look...you can see the numer of claims rising but the number being processed trying to catch up.

At the end of last week... 100-thousand claimgs were filed but only half were processed.

The payout has been slow too.... this graph shows how much has been given out.

For most of march... the department of labor was giving out about 11 million dollars in benefits a week.

It wasn't until the end of march that more money was given out.

At the end of last week... the department gave out 98 million dollars in unempolyment benefits.

But this backlog of claims that is straining the unemployment system is leaving many oregonians upset and frustrated with the state.

We've lived in oregon our entire lives.

We've paid so much in taxes and in unemployment and we've served this state and this country.

We're volunteer firefighters you know we've done our part and we're being let down.

There is some good news..

This timeline shows on march 8th...106 staff were available to process claims. as claims increased... so did the number of people processing those claims. as of monday.... there are now 450 people on staff to help process unemployment.

So the department of employment is working to try to fix the problem and speed up the claim process.

Reporting live in the studio connor mccarthy kezi nine