EDD wrestles with computer outage amid unemployment backlog

Mercury News
By George Avalos

California’s embattled labor agency acknowledged Monday that “an intermittent issue” has surfaced with its computer system that workers use to process claims for unemployment benefits.

The state Employment Development Department has told staffers for multiple state lawmakers that the computer system for handling jobless benefits is suffering outages and glitches.

“We’re trying to catch up with our IT folks,” said Loree Levy, a spokesperson for the state EDD. “It appears there was an intermittent issue.”

The EDD told the state legislative staffers that the labor agency is aware of the computer woes and that attempts are underway to fix the problems.

“My staff reached out to the EDD, which informed us they are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it,” state Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) said in comments emailed to this news organization. “They did not provide an ETA” to get the site working again.

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