Record number of unemployment applicants

Record number of unemployment applicants

Doing to help out.

Because of the surge in demand, the oregon unemployment office has made some changes -- but as newswatch 12's alicia rubin explains -- it just isn't enough.

No brian it isn't -- thousand of oregonians have been without work for almost a month and many haven't been able to access the help they need.

Today i spoke with a local single mom who lost her job when the restaurant she worked at had to make changes -- that was back in march and she's still not able to file for unemployment.

Sarah says: i have a daughter so it's hard she's looking at me and i'm her everything and i have nothing to give her right now it's hard it's really hard sarah, like many other oregonians, lost her job unexpectedly.

Ever since then she's been trying to file for unemployment but it's a daily rejection.

Sarah says: i tried to file an online claim every day but it will deny it every day and it doesn't give me a reason why it's denying it it just says to call the number and the number doesn't work and she's not the only one.

On oregon employment department's website, the average call wait time is over an hour and less than half of those daily calls get answered.

So thousands of people are waiting and trying to get answers sarah says: there's a lot of people without any income and we're all feeling that same fear of what's going to happen there needs to be answers and the lack of information adds to the stress sarah says: it's a hard journey as it is but being a sole provider and losing that sole income there's no word to describe the stress of that it's hard you have to be very strong the oregon employment department says they have hired more employees, shifted staff working in other programs and opened up more phone lines to increase capacity for unemployment claims but the record levels of claims is too much for the system to handle.

Sarah says: it's just i mean what's the plan?

I know that they're trying to hire more people to be able to take more calls and such but i was shocked that there's not an office that we can go to i know the employment office is trying their best to help people there just needs to be more resources sarah says that she's been able to get help paying rent, thanks to saint vincent de paul and she -- like many other people throughout the state are applying to other jobs, trying to find a way to replenish the income they lost because of the virus.

Reporting from home, alicia rubin,