Q&A with: Keely Schneider, Workforce Partnership

Keely Schneider is the director of the Workforce Partnership serving Johnson, Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties for the Kansas Department of Labor. She talked about her views on the current labor market’s challenges.

Q: After a rough couple of weeks with the initial shutdowns, what is your office hearing from companies and the newly unemployed?

A: As you can imagine, we’re fielding calls around unemployment insurance claims. A lot of them, probably 95 percent of the calls have to do with ‘How do I file for unemployment? And particularly for the self-employed, independent contractors. They have never been able to file before, but now with federal relief (under the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program), they are able to do that.

Q: What about volumes of inquiries?

A: There is a lot of frustration about not being able to get into the DOL site; it keeps  crashing. About a week ago, we got these numbers: Normally the number we get in a week is about 1,100. A week ago, we had 887,000 calls statewide. Not claims, but calls No system is prepared for that kind of volume. If imagine that many calls, that many attempts to log onto a Web site, that’s why it’s crashing and why people are getting busy signals.

Q: The mechanics of getting all this done must be pretty daunting.

A: There has been federal guidance to the states, and some of that is still in process, but it typically doesn’t cover unemployment claims. The state Department of Labor doesn’t have processes in place (as of April 5) because of that. But we’re telling people to go ahead and file; you might not be approved right away, but as the guidance arrives and they sift through these, you will be. Filing is the first step.

Q: What’s needed to handle these volumes going forward?

A: I think we’re seeing real improvement this week. The state has been bringing in in staff from other agencies, some others who are retired, working for other departments. They’re bringing on a new platform, working with Amazon to process claims online more efficiently.  They brought in more servers and they are doing all the right thigs. This hit very quickly and very acutely. In a recession, we’ll see these types of claims, but we see them over months or years. Just like if there was a huge onslaught of people needing medical care at one time, the hospitals would not be equipped to handle it. Likewise, with this many layoffs in a couple of weeks time, the system is not equipped to handle it. People need to be patient, but we will work through it for them.