Unemployment non-benefits

I am no doubt one of thousands who have lost their job due to COVID-19. I was furloughed April 2, and applied for unemployment benefits April 3. I now know I will be laid off for good at the end of the month of May.

As of yet, I have not received any benefits. I have no new alerts and the esd.wa.gov website gives me no new information. I know they are swamped but this is ridiculous. You can’t get through by phone - you just get a message that says they’re sorry but they are dealing with an unprecedented number of calls.

However, on May 13 I got through, much to my surprise, only to get the message that they are not taking any incoming calls, so they can deal with outgoing calls to applicants. I couldn’t believe it. So, they tell you to call another number, which I did, which has the same recording that they are dealing with a high number of calls.

This is absurd. Is anyone looking into what they are doing? Not only is it absurd, it’s unacceptable. I think they are working with ancient software from what I understand, but nonetheless this is creating severe anxiety for me and I’m sure many others.

How long is it going to take for this bureaucratic nightmare to end? Employment Services should be ashamed of their performance when so many are depending on them.

Linda Ball

Liberty Lake