‘Crash’ has new meaning as thousands seek benefits

‘Crash’ has new meaning as thousands seek benefits

The number of people seeking jobless benefits in several states, including Ohio, was literally overwhelming this week.

On Monday the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported that its phone lines were down because of high volumes; the next day, high demand caused the state’s Internet site to sign up for unemployment benefits to crash.

Calls were running at 10 times the normal rate, nearly 80,000 at the peak. By comparison, in December 2007, only 135,000 calls were logged during the entire month.

With about 4.5 million Americans collecting jobless benefits — a 26-year high — state Web sites and phone systems used to file for benefits are being tested like never before. New York and North Carolina also experienced system failures.

Part of the problem is a growing number of new layoffs — and in Ohio and the Mahoning Valley, many of those are attributable to the downtown in the auto industry — and part of it was due to an extension of federal unemployment benefits from 13 weeks to 20 weeks.

Ohio’s Web site (http://unemployment.ohio.gov/) is back up and running and additional people are handling phone calls. But the bottom line is that applicants are going to have to show some patience.

There is a larger issue looming, and that is the state’s exhaustion of funds to pay benefits. Increasing the cost of operating the system will only add to the depletion of the budget.

As we have had the opportunity to say in any number of ways in recent months, these are tough times. And they are likely to get tougher.

No shortage of bad news

There was bad employment news emanating from cities far and near this week.

In Pittsburgh, aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. announced it will cut 13 percent of its global work force by the end of the year, meaning the elimination of 13,500 jobs.

In New York City, drugstore operator Walgreen Co. said it will cut 9 percent of its corporate management, or about 1,000 jobs.

In Houston, Schlumberger Ltd., the world’s largest oilfield services company, said it is eliminating about 5 percent of its North American work force, another 1,000 jobs.

In Freemont, Calif., Logitech International SA, a maker of computer peripherals, said it is cutting its salaried work force of l3,500 by about 15 percent in response to weak consumer demand.

All of the bad news wasn’t confine to the United States. In Tokyo, the Japanese electronics component maker TDK Corp. said it would cut 8,000 workers due to falling orders for its DVDs, audio tapes and other recording media.

Closer to home, cutbacks continue at older manufacturing companies and one of the area’s newest high tech companies.

The litany of cutbacks indicates that states are going to be facing far greater challenges than keeping their unemployment Internet sites up and running.

And that the new administration and new Congress have no time to waste in putting together a response. It was a lot easier to get into the mess the nation is in than it will be to get out.