State hiring workers to help the jobless

At least someone's hiring.

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry plans to add 72 people to its payroll to help deal with unemployment benefit-related calls that have at times overwhelmed its eight call centers. That's in addition to 81 call-takers the department added as of last month. The combined 153 new employees will amount to a nearly 20 percent increase in the number of people fielding calls from the jobless.

Call centers likely will extend hours of operation, though the specifics of that plan haven't been worked out, said department spokesman David Smith.

So many people have called seeking information about unemployment benefits, many don't even get put on hold.

"The entire administration is attending to this problem, because people have been getting busy signals," Smith said. "There's nothing worse than getting a busy signal, particularly when you're calling about unemployment benefits."

The department's changes are an attempt to adapt to a state economy that, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, shed 40,000 jobs from May to October. Pennsylvania's 5.8 percent unemployment rate in October was 0.7 percentage points lower than the nation's, but state data for November won't be available until Dec. 18.

And November was brutal, according to the federal bureau.

Last month, the country lost 533,000 jobs, the biggest drop in 34 years and a rate of about 740 jobs lost every hour of the month. In all, 1.9 million jobs have been lost this year. The national unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage points in November, to 6.7 percent.

Lawmakers in Washington have responded to the deepening, year-old recession with an extension of federal unemployment benefits. The seven-week extension, for a total of 20 weeks, took effect last week. At the time, 54,000 people in Pennsylvania had used up their 13-week Emergency Unemployment Compensation, Gov. Ed Rendell said Nov. 25.

Because the state administers federal unemployment, the extension added to calls pouring into call centers, Smith said. The department usually adds a few dozen part-time workers to field calls this time of year, but the phone lines became a confluence for the newest victims of a plunging economy and those eligible for the extension.

Walk-in unemployment centers no longer exist, Smith said. The application process is handled over the Internet, by phone or by printing an application and mailing it.

Smith urged people to call later in the week, when call volumes typically drop off. Mondays and Tuesdays are the worst days, he said.

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