New phone system a hangup for unemployed

Monday, May 24, 1999 | 11:18 a.m.

Allan Herman, a recently unemployed Las Vegas cab driver, says he has tried for 10 days without success to get through to the Nevada Employment Security Division's new phone filing system to open his claim.

"It's so frustrating because my rent, power and phone bills are coming due and they don't want to hear that I can't get through to unemployment -- they want their money," Herman, 38, said. "Even after I get my claim filed, it will be one to four weeks before I get my first check.

"I've tried to get through in the morning, afternoon and evening, and I get the same message every time," the Las Vegas resident of 19 years said.

Herman has fallen victim to a new system for filing claims -- one that is supposed to make the process easier and quicker for the unemployed.

The only way applications for new claims can be filed now is by the phone service called "quick claim," which was installed March 8. So far, quick is not the most accurate term to describe the system.

Each day about 400 calls get through on the system, George Govlick, administrator of the southern region of the Employment Security Division, said.

The division does not track how many do not get through.

The average time on hold for those who get into the system is 26 minutes. Between 90 and 100 people a day who make it through to the system hang up after waiting on hold an average of 3 1/2 minutes.

Once patient ones who stay on the line get through, it takes an additional 11 minutes to file the claim, Govlick said.

Many callers -- Herman among them -- never get that far.

After dialing 486-0350, a caller gets a recording instructing him to punch a number for either English or Spanish. The next command is to punch "2" to file a new claim. The recording tells the caller that there has been a heavy volume of calls and to call back later. The call is then terminated.

The system is designed to allow only a small number of calls to be "stacked" so that people are not stuck on hold for long periods waiting for a claims officer to assist them, Karren Rhodes, spokeswoman for the Employment Security Division, said.

"All new systems have glitches," she said. "We had a system crash last week and we've had problems with callers clogging the lines by repeatedly hitting the redial button when they could not get through."

Rhodes said that once the problems are corrected, the system will be more convenient for clients, a number of whom in the past have had to stand in long lines at the employment office to file claims.

"We are working closely with Lucent Technology, which installed the system, to address these high-end technological problems," Govlick said. "We ask that people try to be patient because in the long run this is going to make it easier for them to file claims."

Herman says he understands that the goal of the phone filing system was to make things more convenient for people like him.

"They should not have put it 100 percent on line until they got the bugs worked out," he said. "What they should have done was leave two options (filing by phone or in person at an employment office) until they were ready to fully go on line."

Govlick said people who are frustrated about not being able to get through from their own phones or from pay phones can go to the local Employment Securities Division offices and use the phones there to try to get through to claims representatives.

While they are doing that, Govlick said, clients also can use the Internet to search for new jobs and utilize other free services, including upgrading their resumes and faxing resumes to potential employers.