Unemployment Claims in California Paused to Address Backlog

California’s Employment Development Department has placed a two-week freeze on new unemployment insurance requests as it addresses a backlog of nearly 600,000 claims, the agency said.

Those applying for unemployment benefits for the first time will be redirected to a temporary website while the agency focuses on claims that were filed more than 21 days ago, the agency said in a statement late Saturday.

• The move comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) “strike team” released a report with recommendations on improving the agency’s systems for processing claims.
• “The issues identified are the start of a journey to reset EDD and ...