Waterloo Times

By late March, Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend was already calling Iowa unemployment claim numbers “staggering,” as 20 times the average number of initial weekly claims hit her office, but the trend has only increased since her announcement.

In most weeks so far this year, initial unemployment claims for Iowa have averaged around 2,000, sometimes climbing just past 4,000. For the week ending March 21, that number rocketed to 40,952.

“It’s pretty staggering to see the number of claims that we’re receiving,” Townsend said. “Essentially, what we’re receiving on a daily basis is what we would receive in a busy month.”

It is the first time in at least 20 years that the office has had more than 15,000 initial claims in a single week, which is as far back as the Iowa Workforce Development website has statistics for. The last time claims broke 10,000 in a week was 2013.

Initial unemployment claims continued to climb though, and the week ending March 28 had another 58,453.

Currently, the workforce development online portal for unemployment insurance has a large yellow banner warning that they expect a “huge surge in calls today,” and that callers should expect long wait times.

The workforce development site encourages those seeking to file for unemployment to send an email to uiclaimshelp@iwd.iowa.gov with any questions instead of calling in.

When unemployment claims first started to jump, Iowa had around 70 confirmed COVID-19 cases and no deaths. As of April 7, confirmed cases had grown to 946, with 99 hospitalized and 25 dead.

Gov. Kim Reynolds has promised to take steps along with other state leaders to respond to the growing economic crisis created by the COVID-19 restrictions.

“We’re continuing to review things that we need to do that can help our small business and Iowans, building on what they’re doing at the federal level as well,” Reynolds said.