Contact: Trevor Monk, dlipress@pa.gov
Harrisburg, PA – In her testimony Thursday before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry (L&I) Secretary Nancy A. Walker highlighted the successful efforts of the Department’s Unemployment Compensation (UC) staff to resolve thousands of pandemic-era UC claims and fraud reports while simultaneously improving customer service for Pennsylvanians who have lost a job through no fault of their own.
Secretary Walker also thanked the committee’s members for supporting the Department’s efforts last year with an allocation from the Service and Infrastructure Improvement Fund (SIIF), which allowed L&I to boost its staffing levels last year with 380 additional UC interviewers. Governor Shapiro has proposed a $68 million increase in the SIIF authorization that will allow L&I to maintain its complement and continue to reduce both the call wait time for claimants and the time it takes to issue determinations.
“When he took office, Governor Shapiro promised to make overhauling the UC system a priority and committed his Administration to enhancing the system’s functionality and bolstering the system’s resilience during times oflow or high unemployment,” Secretary Walker said. “By leveraging SIIF dollars, L&I has increased staffing levels to adequately address the needs of claimants and employers alike. With continued investment in the UC system, we will be able to provide the safety-net system that Pennsylvanians deserve and expect.”
Under Governor Shapiro’s leadership, L&I distributed more than $1.7 billion in UC benefits in 2023 to about 326,000 Pennsylvanians – all of whom experienced the loss of a job or work hours through no fault of their own.
Customer-service improvements during the Shapiro Administration’s first year include:
- Since May 2023, UC staff have been answering emails in real time – and they did it more than 190,000 times in 2023.
- With doubled capacity of trained staff who can answer claimant questions and provide real-time status updates, the UC Live Chat service has been available to claimants with little to no wait since the summer. UC staff served claimants more than 74,000 times through Chat in 2023.
- In March, Secretary Walker announced the indefinite extension of UC Connect -- a successful program that enhances Pennsylvanians’ access to the UC system by offering in-person appointments to claimants at Pennsylvania CareerLink® locations. Nearly 40,000 claimants took advantage of this service in 2023, bringing the total number of individuals served since the program’s launch to more than 64,000.
Check out the news coverage below of L&I’s customer-service improvements for the Unemployment Compensation program:
PennLive: Pa. labor dept. has cleared unemployment backlog, looks to add investigators
For more information on the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, please visit the website or follow L&I on Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
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