California's backlog of unemployment claims will take 2 months to clear, Gov. Newsom says

Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t expect California to get through a backlog of unemployment insurance claims for two more months despite a push to hire thousands of temporary workers and improve state technology.

Newsom announced new efforts Wednesday aimed at short- and long-term improvements at the Employment Development Department, which has struggled to keep up with a surge of unemployment insurance claims since the coronavirus outbreak arrived in March.

The department has processed 8 million unemployment insurance claims since then and distributed about $49 billion in benefits, according to the release.

Yet nearly 1 million claims that might be eligible for payment are sitting in a backlog. The state’s efforts will focus on eliminating the backlog of those “actionable” claims by the end of September, according to the release.

Read more: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article244587787.html