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Finding a job in Rhode Island has been steadily getting more difficult in recent months. In December the state’s unemployment rate jumped 0.7 percent from November’s 9.3 percent jobless rate to 10.0 percent. This is the highest ratio of out of work residents Rhode Island has had in the last 30 years and the highest is the nation. During the same month the national average was 7.2 percent.

Because of the lack of Rhode Island jobs, employers that are hiring are finding themselves swamped with an overwhelming number of resumes. Case in point, the State Department of Labor and Training recently announced that they would be hiring 40 new workers in hopes of processing the ever-increasing number of claimants and has, so far, received more than 30 times that number of applicants.

According the department’s director, Sandra M. Powell, over 1,200 residents are all vying for the limit number of jobs. This has caused a bit of a problem. The Department will have to have assistance from another state agency in order to be able to process all of the applications.

With jobs so hard to come by in Rhode Island, the $19 an hour positions look very good to those without out work. The same can be said about being on the other side of the unemployment line.

Many feel that the Department isn’t moving quickly enough to fix issues with in its offices. The high unemployment rate has caused a drastic increase in the number of people trying to file for benefits, which, in turn, has caused issues with the Department’s phone lines and e-mails. This is slowing down those who recently lost their jobs ability to receive their checks. In fact, a State House hearing recently dealt with this problem.

A State House hearing recently dealt with the problem. According to the Providence Journal, Rep. Steven M. Costantino, who is the chairman of the House Finance Committee, feels that it is a “crisis” that people are waiting almost a month to receive their benefits.

The job announcements were posted online last month, in hopes of finding 40 new workers for the Department’s insurance call center. The available positions were listed as part-time opportunities with flexible hours. Despite this, there is a chance that some workers will put in as many as 35 hours a week. According to Powell the new employers should be added to the payroll by March 2nd.

In addition to this, the Department has enlisted the help of some of its retired workers. These individuals came in to try to help the current staff process new claimants as fast as possible. On February 2nd, started by asking back 8 retirees. As of now 23 prior workers are helping out, according to Department Spokesperson Laura Hart. She says that these individuals have processed over 1,100 weekly benefits and responded to more than 3,000 e-mails, along with many other tasks.

Despite this, the Committee feels that still more should be done to ensure that recently laid off workers receive their first checks in a more timely fashion.

After the new workers are hired, many expect that it will take as long as a month before they are ready to handle the full responsibilities of their roles.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 10:17 pm and is filed under job search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.