KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Tennessee saw a record number of continued claims the week leading up to April 25. According to state officials, the number of continued claims hit 324,543, a historic high for Tennessee. The number represents how many Tennesseans continue to draw unemployment benefits.
Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development Spokesperson Chris Cannon said continued claims is the important number to watch as we wait for the economy to rebound.
"That’s the number of people making their claim to move on to the next week, that’s the number we need to look at to see if folks are going back to work and if fewer people are collecting unemployment benefits," Cannon told WVLT News Anchor Amanda Hara.
"We haven’t seen it decline yet, but that new number will come out Thursday and we will be closely looking at that to see if that number of continued claims decreases as well," Cannon said.
Two weekends ago vendors installed new servers to speed up the unemployment filing process. Cannon said the installation of that equipment significantly improved the system.
"We’ve seen really good responses to the system ever since. We haven’t seen any responsiveness or system capacity issues since then, so that really did make the difference we were hoping it was going to make. Not only for the customers who need the system to apply for unemployment or make their weekly certifications, but also on the back end it’s really speeding up the process for our agents and the call centers. You have to keep in mind it’s one system so if it’s slow for you on the front end it’s slow for us on the back end. So now we’re able to process claims faster and answer claims faster because of the new system."
The state's unemployment questionnaire is now formatted to include self-employed Tennesseans filing for unemployment.
"We have since gone in and rebuilt that system and have updated the questionnaire to make it more user friendly for the self-employed folks so they can better navigate that application process," Cannon said.
The number of new claims filed peaked in Tennessee three weeks ago and has steadily declined since.
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Tenn. labor officials keep laser focus on 'continued claims' number - WVLT.TV
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