Unemployed workers get additional job search relief

As they struggle to line up unemployment benefits, laid-off and furloughed workers in Florida will continue to get a waiver from requirements that they look for work and report to the state.

The agency processing thousands of jobless claims has extended a waiver from those requirements. It now continues through June 13.

Applicants still must answer questions about their job searches in order for the state Department of Economic Opportunity to process their claims in the in the CONNECT application system operated by the state Department of Economic Opportunity, but it will not affect benefit payments, the agency says on its website.

In an announcement over the weekend, the state also said it extended the waiver of the socalled “waiting week” requirement through Aug. 1.

State law mandated both the work search and waiting week requirements before the coronavirus pandemic triggered the shutdown of most of Florida’s economy in mid-March.

Effective April 1, Gov. Ron DeSantis waived the weekly work searches as part of the unemployment claims application process. The waiver also excused workers from registering with the Employ Florida job site or submitting information about potential employers they contacted each week.

Given the onslaught of hundreds of thousands of weekly jobless claims descending upon the agency and the lack of job openings during the pandemic shutdown, most job searches were superfluous as employers either closed their businesses or dramatically scaled back operations.

Although the governor ordered the state’s economy to be reopened starting in early May, it’s being done in phases, slowing hiring and rehiring.

The so-called “waiting week” has been a fixture of unemployment insurance laws around the country, experts say. It was established to give states time to process initial jobless claims, but critics assert that advances in technology make the wait unnecessary. The real reason they’re still in place, opponents say, is that the delay saves states money, especially if workers find jobs before their eligibility to collect benefits expires.

The waiver was important because during the pandemic, applicants had “to wait and sit unemployed for a week before you can receive benefits. Why would you have people just sitting there for no reason?” Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, said in March. The senator said he had asked the agency to drop the waiting period shortly after the pandemic started to slow the economy.

Since March 15, according to the Department of Economic Opportunity, the agency has paid out nearly $3.9 billion to slightly more than 1 million people, It has received more than 2.2 million claims, processing 1.8 million of them.

DeSantis has cited rising payout numbers as signs of progress the state has made in processing claims and paying benefits to long-suffering workers whose bank and retirement accounts

have been drying up while they wait for their claims to be acknowledged.

But out-of-work Floridians are continuing to bombard state and federal politicians and the media with complaints that they can’t reach the agency by phone or online without waiting for hours, days and even weeks. DeSantis has countered that the state has hired thousands of workers and transferred state employees from other agencies to help attack the backlog.

But many applicants say that even when they do get through, newly arrived staffers lack answers and don’t know where to obtain them.

One new feature of the agency’s online CONNECT system: a “virtual waiting room” that places inbound clients in a holding pattern until their turn comes up in the queue. It appeared for the first time on Monday, according to a Broward County client who has been helping his wife navigate the system. But it still took the better part of the morning to get through, said the man, who declined to be quoted by name.

In a statement announcing the new room, the agency said it allows people “to reserve their place in line while other claimants access the system.”