Florida workers cite problems with overwhelmed unemployment system

As Florida works to relax its unemployment assistance requirement amid the coronavirus outbreak, some workers say they’re still struggling to access benefits from the system.

That’s according to a report from the Miami Herald.

Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was waiving requirements that say individuals must keep applying for jobs in order to receive unemployment benefits.

But as the Herald details, some who have already been laid off are running into problems with a system that appears to be struggling with errors.

“David Carson, 28, a former bartender at Coconut Grove restaurant Tigertail & Mary, applied for unemployment the day he was laid off. At least, he tried to,” the Herald reports.

“The state-run website gave him multiple error messages, which extended the application process to a two-day affair. First, he had to fill out the initial part of the form on the Department of Economic Opportunity’s website. Then he was sent to an entirely separate site to submit his résumé. That didn’t work, so he had to fill everything in by hand.”

With testing for everyone still unavailable, government officials still do not have a grasp on how many people have the virus. That means rather than quarantining those known individuals, officials have had to take the drastic step of recommending everyone stay away from large groups, just in case someone has the virus.

Many workers have been asked to work from home. But with an economic slowdown being forecast for the next few months, many worry the impact could be more severe: from workers losing their jobs to some stores or companies shutting down entirely.

Some of that has begun happening already with bars across the state shutting down and dine-in service at restaurants being eliminated.

That’s led to an increase of unemployment filings, according to the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO).

DEO spokeswoman Tiffany Vause told the Herald more than 76,000 calls had been placed to the agency from Monday, March 16 through Wednesday, March 18. The prior week had seen 28,000 calls.

The death rate for those who test positive for the virus has recently sat above 3%. However, those calculations do not include individuals who may have contracted the virus, but are asymptomatic and thus survive without incident. Including those individuals would lower the death rate, but it’s unclear how many such individuals there are worldwide.

Most who do show symptoms develop a fever or cough and may have trouble breathing, though they do recover. But older individuals and those with underlying health risks are susceptible to developing more severe symptoms.