For more jobless people, more waiting
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NORTHAMPTON - When she lost her job in the local building trades, Sarah McCoy knew she'd have to tune up a resume and scour job listings.
What the single mother of two teenagers didn't expect were the delays she faced in filing her claim for jobless benefits.
"It is what it is, as far as getting laid off," McCoy said Thursday. "But to not be able to apply is a problem. ... Does anybody get how frustrating this is?"
The state's top labor official apparently does.
Suzanne Bump, secretary of the state's Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, told the Gazette Thursday that come Monday, 38 new workers will join the call centers that take claims for jobless benefits.
With that increased staffing, along with 55 more positions to be added in December, Bump said telephone waits should fall from well over an hour in some cases to between five and eight minutes.
"That's so much better than what these people, already at wits' end, have had to deal with as of late," Bump said. "We're trying our best to rise to the challenge. We understand that people get frustrated and abandon their calls."
As both the state and nation's unemployment rates rise, to a 16-year high for the U.S., McCoy is one of thousands seeking access to a financial lifeline.
In the Valley, she and others have been seeking help from offices run by the Franklin-Hampshire Career Centers.
The line of unemployed people forms early these days outside the Northampton office at 178 Industrial Drive. But because the office has only one unemployment assurance specialist, people face waits for in-person help as well as telephone contact.
This time of year is historically busy for the career centers, as construction firms begin seasonal layoffs. The falling economy has intensified the mismatch between need and staffing, pushing waits up dramatically in the last month.
"We're not dealing with normal times," said Michael Truckey, the Franklin-Hampshire program's executive director.
The career centers in Greenfield and Northampton received visits from 561 new customers in October, a 120 percent increase over the 254 who came for the first time in October 2007.
Many mornings this month, a line has been forming by 8 a.m. outside the Northampton office, half an hour before it opens.
Though claims can be taken over the state's phone system - by calling (877) 626-6800 - some newly jobless people prefer to have a face-to-face interview. Many have no doubt given up on the telephone delays that hit 1 hour and 47 minutes last week, Truckey said. One customer in Greenfield, determined to get though, sat in a private office with a phone to her ear for an hour and 23 minutes before getting through. Staff members brought her water, pieces of hard candy and, finally, a stress ball to squeeze.
"They come to the career centers to talk to a human being," Truckey said. "We've been using the word comfort a lot."
"We want to make sure people wait the least amount of time," said Ann Deres, the Northampton center's business services supervisor.
Customers wait
At 2:15 Thursday afternoon, roughly 10 people were waiting for counseling in the Northampton office, filing out paperwork or trying to get through to the jobless claims call center from two phones in a corner.
Shane Williams, a 37-year-old construction worker, occupied a seat near the reception desk, still dressed in the blaze orange cap he wore up in a tree stand Thursday morning while bow hunting in Vermont.
Williams said he had been unable since Monday to get through to the call center to place a claim. He tried one morning at 8:29 a.m. and got a recorded message saying the lines were closed. He hit redial and was told that due to high call volumes, he faced a long wait.
Giving up Thursday, Williams drove from his home in South Royalton, Vt., 2½ hours to Greenfield, then came on to the Northampton office. As of 3 p.m., the chances of seeing someone looked good for Williams, who works for a Holyoke company that maintains power plants.
In all his years applying for unemployment, this has been the worst in getting a claim filed. "I've never had a problem with it. But with the economy the way it is, everybody's laid off."
Rich Pietraszkiewicz, 58, of Easthampton sat at a small conference table, beside two women busying themselves with paperwork. He was waiting to see a center staffer to resolve a problem with a claim he said he filed more than a month ago, after losing his maintenance job with an Easthampton property-management company.
"I've got about $100 to my name and they owe me five or six checks," said Pietraszkiewicz. He is worried about making December's rent.
Beside him, a man rolled his eyes as he waited to get through to the call center. The estimated waiting time was 41 minutes.
One applicant's road
McCoy, the Florence woman laid off from a building trades job, says that on her first visit to the Northampton office, she was told the claims worker was not available until later in the day. She says she was cautioned that because claims are handled on a first-come, first-served basis, she might not be seen.
On her second trip to the office, McCoy said a friendly staffer informed her that the claims worker was again not in. She was steered to a phone in the center and advised to call her claim in - an alternative that she'd already tried without success at home.
After a half-hour wait in the phone system, McCoy was able to give her information and just over a week later received a notice that her claim had been accepted.
But without knowing how much she would receive in benefits, she was unable to complete applications for other types of assistance through the Department of Transitional Assistance for her children, ages 13 and 17.
"There's a lot of things you can't do until you have those numbers," she said. "My tombstone's going to read, #Death by paperwork.' It's filling out different forms for everybody."
On Wednesday, she received a notice telling her what she'll see in her benefit check - a step that enabled her to move forward.
Now, she's considering taking one of the resume-preparation workshops that the Northampton center offers. "I haven't had to have one in years, so I need to work on that."
