PACIFIC COUNTY — A staggering 212 workers in Pacific County filed for unemployment in the last week, more than 1,100% higher than the weekly average in 2019.

Those numbers are replicated in counties throughout the state, as the covid-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented rush of unemployment claims to be filed with the Washington State Employment Security Department from March 15 through March 21.

Workers on the Long Beach Peninsula who’ve lost their job because of the pandemic have had varying degrees of success as they try to file for unemployment and receive their benefits. Those benefits are especially critical when so few businesses and industries in the area are actively looking to hire more employees.

Filed with ease

Melissa Smith submitted her unemployment application on March 13 on the Employment Security Department website, and said the process went “perfectly” and took just 20 minutes to complete.

“I’ve never filed for unemployment before, so I was a little nervous,” Smith said. “But everything went smooth.”

The only hiccup in the process was when her standby request was rejected. The Employment Security Department said that all standby requests are being reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and that any request for more than four weeks of standby will be automatically and temporarily denied. If the applicant meets the new standby criteria, a message that their standby request has been approved will be sent out.

It took just a day for the department to review her claim and approve her standby request. She’s already received her first check via direct deposit.

Stuck on hold

For Amanda Woods, who was temporarily laid off from her job at Lighthouse Oceanfront Resort as the entire hospitality industry closed down, she hasn’t even been able to start the process to file an unemployment claim. When she went onto the Employment Security Department website to create an account, she was denied because the information matched up with an account she created many years ago when she was about 18 years old.

“I totally forgot that I even filed for unemployment, I didn’t even know because I did it over the phone,” said Woods. “I didn’t even know that I had an account online, so I tried to make one and it said the information was the same as another account, so it locked me out of both of them and gave me a number to call.”

She’s called several department phone numbers to try and have her issue addressed, but has yet to be able to speak to an actual person due to the high volume of calls flooding the Employment Security Department phone lines. If she’s lucky enough to get past the automated message that says all of the department’s circuits are busy and to try calling again later, she gets left on hold for up to three hours before the line unceremoniously cuts off.

Woods — who’s overseeing a household of five, as well as caring for her two grandmothers who both live nearby and have respiratory related illnesses — says she won’t take the chance of exposing her family by going out.

“Trying to get out and go work at Okie’s or at the pharmacy or something, I’m pretty much putting [my family] at risk,” Woods said.

She’s looked into receiving relief via TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, but the same account that is needed to submit an unemployment claim is also used to apply for TANF funds, thereby locking Woods out until the situation with her account is resolved.

For now, Woods is in limbo as she tries to break through the logjam of calls flooding the Employment Security Department’s phone lines. Until the situation with her account is resolved, she’s unable to file her unemployment claim and begin the path to receiving the benefits that she needs for her and her family.