The Montana Department of Labor and Industry says it issued more than 35,000 unemployment insurance payments in the last week of March.
The uptick is attributed to Montanans losing work hours as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
A federal relief package signed into law last week will add an additional $600 dollars per week to unemployment payments. Those funds are not yet available but will be backdated to the week of March 27 and distributed in a lump sum.
The federal relief package also extended unemployment benefits to self-employed, gig and contract workers.
The state labor department received nearly half-a-million phone calls from March 23 through Apr. 1, a volume it calls “unprecedented.” The department’s website has crashed at times due to high volume of visitors. It scheduled for maintenance for four hours Apr. 2, making login and registration for the benefits site unavailable.
DLI says it trained 70 Job Service and Employment Relations employees to answer frequently asked questions by phone. It encourages laid off workers to apply for benefits at MontanaWorks.gov.
