The man overseeing the state's unemployment system is advising Floridians not to hang up the phone when calling to inquire about their benefits. Jonathan Satter acknowledges the wait is long—up to an hour and 39 minutes on Monday.
"It's really long, and that's why we've scaled up from about 40 people answering the phone to 6,000. We have hundreds of people that are in different stages of training so that we can get those wait times down," Satter says.
Satter explains that the Department of Economic Opportunity got about one million calls yesterday from people seeking assistance with their unemployment claims. A total of 15 million calls have been made since March 15. However, Satter says the department wasn't able to reach most of those people because they hung up. He says the best time to call is in the late afternoon, but that could change.
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