The Vermont Department of Labor experienced a significant glitch in its unemployment insurance application portal, impacting a substantial portion of jobless individuals seeking benefits. Confirming the problem, the Labor Commissioner Mike Harrington said that the decades-old portal initially encountered glitches last Monday which then led to cascading issues. Although the department declared that the portal was fixed last week, many Vermonters were unsuccessful in applying for benefits.

Unemployment office phone lines have been persistently congested with Vermonters striving to resolve the issues, extending the wait times for phone calls from two to three hours. Harrington recognizes the severity of the situation expressing his desire to have shorter wait times.

The problem traces back to last week, particularly impacting those individuals who were attempting to claim unemployment benefits for the weeks of Dec. 3 through Dec, 9 and Dec. 10 through 16. According to Harrington, for those who were late in filing their application for benefits due to the glitch, the state will backdate their application. However, this will mean that some benefits may be delayed.

The ordeal is believed to have been caused by the state’s decades-old unemployment IT system. In response to the issues, the state has invested $30 million to revamp the system, but the implementation of changes is still a few years away. The department is hopeful to secure a vendor for the IT overhaul by the first quarter of 2024, with the complete reprogramming expected to take another two years.