Pennsylvania’s labor department is looking to maintain its vastly improved service for unemployment filings — following the final clearance last year of the pandemic backlog — as well as step up labor law enforcement amidst a growing number of issues.
During a budget hearing before the state Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry said call wait times for unemployment inquiries are now averaging 27 minutes — as opposed to a year ago when wait times were still running around 80 minutes if you could even get into the queue.
The department is effectively clear of its nearly four-year struggle to deal with the fallout of COVID-19 when pandemic layoffs generated millions of unemployment claims virtually overnight.