Gov. Phil Murphy says the Department of Labor is making progress to help the hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans who are looking to file for unemployment.

 

Even though just over half of the claims have been addressed, Gov. Murphy says there has been improvement in the past 24 hours, saying nobody will miss out on their benefits.

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"No one is going to lose one single penny of benefits they deserve,” says Gov. Murphy. “The staff at the Department of Labor are dealing with unprecedented volumes of applications. You asked me what's unprecedented. How does this sound - 576,904 applications in just the past three weeks."

 

The Department of Labor has extended the capacity of call centers to handle more calls and reduce waiting times. They have also automated more processes as a way to reduce the time it takes to determine if someone is eligible, and they've provided laptops to let 500 more employees work from home.

While appearing Tuesday night on News 12, Sen. Cory Booker offered some advice for people trying to apply.

 

"Now the challenge is just getting through, being patient, continuing to call so that you can get through,” says Sen. Booker. “But especially those New Jerseyans who might think they're not qualified because they were self-employed, or doing delivery service, or Uber, or Lyft work, you qualify as well now, and so please start working those phones."

The Department of Labor says it's using what's known as an "intelligent automated reply" system to emails, so when an applicant sends in an email, they get a reply specific to their question.