Unemployment call center expands hours

Apr. 8--The hours at the state unemployment claim call center have been expanded in an effort to improve response time for the voluminous increase of new claims, the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions announced Tuesday.

The Unemployment Insurance Operations Center at 877-664-6984 will take calls from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. starting Wednesday through the end of the week. Until now, the call center hours were 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.

Workforce Solutions will announce Friday if the call center hours expansion will continue beyond this week and include weekends.

Workforce Solutions last week was in the process of adding 61 employees to the 115 people working at the operations center.

Unemployment applicants have told The New Mexican they have had to dial for hours to get through to the operations center.

Workforce Solutions Secretary Bill McCamley said 93 percent of unemployment claims are filed online at jobs.state.nm.us.

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