VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said he feels the frustration of unemployment applicants who are waiting on the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) to provide help and answers about "outstanding issues" with their unemployment claims.
“We want to get the pandemic behind us. We want to get people back to work so they're not filing for unemployment anymore, but it's certainly an issue, and we understand it," Northam said Friday.
This week, a VEC spokesperson said 59,000 people are still awaiting unemployment claim reviews and adjudications.
For context, the employment commission reported more than 70,000 outstanding claim reviews and adjudications in November. The backlog has been a persistent problem throughout the pandemic, with an unprecedented volume of unemployment claims overwhelming VEC staff members assigned to manage them.
“We have 8.5 million Virginians, 1.6 million of them filed for unemployment benefits, so the system was really inundated," Northam said. "They’ve worked hard. We have put more investment in our VEC, upgraded our technology, brought in more adjudicators as you say, but the bottom line is we need to continue to work to make sure everybody gets the benefits that they need.”
Department of Labor data shows Virginia is last in the country at resolving issues with unemployment claims within three weeks, only meeting that federal recommendation 3% of the time in 2021.
When asked about the ranking and what Virginia leaders are doing to fix it, Northam asked for patience.
“A lot of these [claims] are going through the appeals process, and it takes time. Again, we’ve brought in more adjudicators to deal with this," Northam said. "I would say to the people out there who are frustrated, and I feel their frustration, be patient and persevere. We have people who are answering the phone as we speak to help these individuals so we’ll keep working at it.”
Northam responded to some of 13News Now's questions about unemployment issues after signing environmental and conservation bills at the Brock Center in Virginia Beach on Friday.