Reviewing unemployment claims might be the busiest job in Pennyslvania
Voices from the real world
The flood of calls from the unprecedented number of Pennsylvanians out of work this year reaches Shawn Domenico at the phone on his kitchen table in Lincoln Place.
Every weekday from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., and sometimes up to 16 hours on the weekend, he listens to people’s stories about how they came to be unemployed.
A claims examiner for the state Office of Unemployment Compensation, Mr. Domenico, 45, reviews the cases and makes decisions about whether they qualify for benefits.
“I’m the first person that hears all the ins and outs about it, and what the employer has to say. That’s the hardest part: You have to try as best you can to hear both sides and make a fair call.”
Like most of the staff at the unemployment service center in Duquesne, he had shifted to working from home by early April.
So when he speaks with a caller in his soothing voice fit for radio, he might have something warming in the oven for lunch, “kind of like how I would envision living in France.”
For most people he talks to, “What they want is just somebody to listen to their case.”
Since March 15, more than 2.7 million Pennsylvania workers have filed for unemployment, and the state has paid out more than $18 billion in state and federal benefits, according to the Department of Labor & Industry.
Between mid-March and June 25, unemployment office staff had worked more than 157,000 overtime hours.
In recent weeks, a rising concern from callers is not whether they are eligible for unemployment benefits but whether they can keep those benefits if they are called back to work.
“That’s the question for everybody: When is it safe to go back and do this? How much is safe?” Mr. Domenico said.
“Some people are raring to go, and they want to do it, and others are not so sure. And the ones that aren’t so sure, well, those are the ones that I’ve seen more of now.”
Mr. Domenico is on the statewide executive board for the Service Employees International Union Local 668. As a union representative, he sometimes hears similar concerns from his fellow workers as he does from callers.
“They’re trying to balance how to work at home when they’ve got the kids and somebody has to watch them,” he said.
He also understands what it’s like to be on the other side of the phone.
Twice, in the economic downturns of 2002 and 2008, he lost his jobs in retail and at Starbucks, and he claimed emergency unemployment benefits.
Years of customer service taught him to read people and be understanding — skills that apply to administering a benefit program as much as selling a shirt or a coffee, he said.
There’s also something familiar about a seemingly endless line of people waiting to be helped.
“It’s like 9 a.m. at the cafe all over again,” he said.