Virus’ spread spurs surge in unemployment claims
Connecticut sees new numbers top 220,000
The state Department of Labor has received more than 220,000 initial claims for unemployment compensation since the state declared a public health emergency as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday, equating to nearly 13 percent of the state’s 1.7 million workers entering March.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor logged 33,000 initial claims for benefits as having being processed for Connecticut, after cranking out some 25,000 over the previous week as layoffs spiked with business closures. For the entirety of 2019, DOL received 180,000 claims for jobless benefits.
Earlier this week, Lamont suggested some newly unemployed workers might have to wait as long as five weeks for the state to process their claims and mail initial checks. On Thursday, he raised the possibility of a six-week wait, calling it “absolutely unacceptable.” The labor department has added 50 employees in the past few weeks but is still struggling to keep up with volume.
Employers in Connecticut have posted 4,200 job openings on the Indeed jobs board over the past two weeks, about 5 percent of them via Care.com which posts jobs for home health workers and other caregivers.
Many more companies are posting jobs directly on their own websites, including Stop & Shop, which entered the COVID-19 crisis looking to hire 5,000 additional staff. A spokesperson said Thursday the supermarket chain continues to fill store and delivery jobs but provided no update on how many have been put to work so far.
The U.S. Department of Labor information released Thursday morning reflected claims through March 28, with the United States seeing a record total of 6.6 million by that point. As of last Friday, Connecticut had the second highest rate in the nation of people receiving jobless benefits, at more than 82,000 for an insured unemployment rate of 2.7 percent. Just prior to the crisis, some 42,000 people were receiving benefits, which last six months from the initial disbursement.
Alaska leads the nation at 2.8 percent, with New Jersey third at 2.6 percent followed by California and Massachusetts. Rhode Island was the only other Northeast state to rank among the 10 highest insured unemployment rates.
In the three weeks since Lamont declared a public health emergency in Connecticut, DOL has published only 10 notifications of mass layoffs involving 40 or more people, amounting to less than 2 percent of jobless claims at last report by the department.
A requirement in many instances under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the notifications are intended to allow DOL to dispatch “rapid response” teams to help affected employees find new jobs. But with state labor departments buried under jobless benefits applications, some large employers are taking it upon themselves to steer their displaced workers to counterparts that are badly understaffed, from grocery chains and delivery services to nursing homes.
That includes Hilton, which lists jobs nationally including for several
Connecticut employers like Stop & Shop, Amazon and Brookdale Senior Living.
Under its flagship brand and others like Doubletree, Hampton Inn & Suites, Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites, Hilton has 40 hotels in Connecticut including multiple venues in Stamford, Danbury, Norwalk, Milford and Shelton that are franchised largely to independent owners.
“We are aware of properties implementing various actions, including adopting flexible hours, use of (paid time off ), shorter weeks, job rotations, and in some cases, furloughs,” said Hilton spokesperson Laura Ford. “Since our March 23rd launch, our workforce resource center has grown to over a million jobs across 59 companies. We look forward to welcoming (team members) back to our hotels once the market stabilizes.”
Existing temporary employment agencies are taking up some of the placement slack as well, including at Stew Leonard’s which has brought on about 75 additional employees at stores in Norwalk and Danbury in the past few weeks.
“We are working with temp agencies to fill some skilled positions (such as) forklift drivers in our receiving departments,” stated Stew Leonard’s Market spokesperson Meghan Bell in an email response to a query. “We are also reaching out to local schools to see if we can tap into their database of cafeteria workers, reaching to contacts in the restaurant industry for cooks (and) chefs, and liaising with the local chamber of commerce.”