tag | Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry

Advocates say some people applying for state unemployment benefits have had trouble doing so for the last two years. They’re asking Pennsylvania’s Labor & Industry Department to more fully address those issues.

This week, the state’s Department of Labor and Industry has opened up more vocational rehabilitation services.

The State Police, Labor & Industry, Education and Human Services departments say they need to directly hire or encourage more staff to join their professions in the coming year.

Many aspects of the labor force has changed during the past two years, as workers left jobs for new careers and some retired early to explore other opportunities.

The state has struggled to distinguish between fraudulent and legitimate claims, which some said led many unemployed Pennsylvanians to deal with cumbersome verification systems designed to root out fraud.

In all, the agency estimates it owes $19.4 million to tens of thousands of people who were erroneously charged an inflated interest rate between 2006 and 2016.

The state first learned it had overcharged thousands of people unemployment interest in 2016, but didn’t disclose it until Spotlight PA asked about the problem.