CAMPBELL, Calif. (KCBS) -- The days of walking into the unemployment office to file a claim are long gone, and those who can’t easily file online are discovering that trying to get benefits can be a job unto itself.
There are only two ways to apply now—over the Internet or over the phone. Talking to a live human being about your claim can be next to impossible, as Linda Bishop discovered the hard way over the past three weeks.
KCBS' Mike Colgan reports
The queue to use the four phones at the EDD office in Campbell was about four hours deep, she said, “and I spent four hours at home redialing.”
Bishop said she was using the phones that connect directly to the EDD call center because the system had simply hung up on her too many times. “They tell you sorry, we’ve got too many people calling.”
Since the start of the recession, the U.S. economy has shed nearly 2 million jobs.
Employers across the country axed 533,000 jobs in November alone, driving the nationwide unemployment rate up to a 15-year high of 6.7 percent. Analysts predict another 3 million more will be lost between now and the spring of 2010.
(jro)
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