Montgomery County continues to see high numbers of initial unemployment claims, with 5,615 filed last week.
A total of 47,686 people in the county have filed initial claims since the first week of March, according to data released by the Maryland Department of Labor Thursday morning.
State officials have handled more claims since early March than they did in all of 2019.
Across the state, there were 37,225 initial claims filed last week.
The number of initial claims in both the county and the state decreased for the third week in a row. At its highest number of claims in one week in early April, the state had 108,508 initial claims and Montgomery County had 15,751 initial claims.
The county’s initial claims dropped to 9,548 the following week, then 6,938 last week.
Initial unemployment claims are those filed by people for the first time. The state releases data on the number of initial claims filed each week as an indicator of recent job losses.
The Labor Department’s new Beacon one-stop unemployment insurance application launched on Friday. It allows residents to file claims for all regular benefits and those under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act.
The Beacon site allows self-employed individuals and independent contractors to file online using the application.
The site had multiple problems after it launched, including technical difficulties and glitches. It to be taken down on Sunday afternoon for maintenance on the system. It was opened later that evening, but was operating at slower speeds.
More than 245,000 accounts have been activated, 100,000 new claims have been submitted, and 273,000 weekly certifications had been filed through the site as of Wednesday afternoon.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Gov. Larry Hogan said an average of 33 new accounts are created every minute and an average of 780 claims are successfully filed every hour.
Hogan acknowledged that residents are having difficulty with the website and getting through to the department’s call center.
“It is simply not good enough. The IT contractor who developed this site and the Department of Labor have fallen short of the high standards that we have set and the people of Maryland deserve better,” he said Wednesday.
He said the Labor Department has added hundreds of staff members to try to make the system and claim process faster.
“It’s frustrating to me that any one person has to wait,” he said.
The Montgomery County Council sent a letter to Hogan on Wednesday asking that the Labor Department release additional data on how long unemployment claims are taking to be processed.
The council specifically asked that the report include the average number of days to process a new unemployment claim, average time for a new claimant to receive the first payment, average time at claim centers for a call to be answered, and average call times.
Council Member Will Jawando, who spearheaded the letter, wrote in a statement on Wednesday that residents need to know what to expect when they try to file a claim.
“Regularly providing this data publicly is one way that we can ensure we are being efficient, transparent and accountable to residents who are hurting financially right now,” he wrote.
The Labor Department’s call center hours were extended to 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.
Questions can be sent without waiting on hold to a new email address: ui.inquiry@maryland.gov.
Briana Adhikusuma can be reached at briana.adhikusuma@moco360.media.
