TALLAHASSEE, Fla — For nearly a month, the state has been requiring folks collecting unemployment to prove they’re searching for work.
“I’ve done that before the cut-off date, the May 29 when the work search ended. I’d been looking for months before that,” said Barbara DeVille.
No luck yet for her, which is why she’s been attempting to enter in her work searches so she can keep receiving her unemployment benefits but she says that wasn’t possible this last time around.
“I mean I’ve got it, I just can’t get it to them,” she said.
She says the option to enter them in didn’t come up for her. Regardless, she got paid, but was fearful on Thursday, when she goes to claim her weeks again she wouldn’t be able to because of what happened.
She says a message on her CONNECT dashboard alerts her of the problem but, “I go in yesterday to try and fill it out which I did and every time I submit it I get kicked out,” DeVille said. “I’ve done it probably in between yesterday and today 10 times. I don’t know what to do.”
The DEO posted this to Twitter telling folks they can enter their work searches into a new help center website but you must get an invite through e-mail from the DEO first.
This is what it looks like but at the bottom, it asks for the “issue ID number” the DEO provides in the e-mail.
”They couldn’t even accommodate what we were sending them before this so now everybody is trying to put all these jobs in and it’s not working at all,” said DeVille.
The new help center is also supposed to assist claimants with other common issues ABC Action News has been reporting on for months now, like problems with your claim status or bank account information. But when we randomly selected a few options to see how the site works, it submitted the inquiry without getting any personal information which means the DEO has no idea who submitted it and how to get in contact to help.
This plus problems in CONNECT continue just as the Federal benefits are set to stop Saturday.
“Yea, it worries me a lot, it does,” said DeVille. “I’m married so it’s not only my income that we’re living on like some people so I have a little cushion that way but it definitely helps pay the bills.”
We asked the DEO what’s wrong with the help center website they told us they’re looking into it.
