New York Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon has overseen the state unemployment system for a decade. Credit: Video still: NYS Department of Labor

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Last December, Kyra Assibey-Bonsu realized that her stream of work as a freelance audio producer was “puttering out.”

Assibey-Bonsu, who lives in Brooklyn, was unsure about her eligibility, so she tried to contact the New York state Department of Labor by calling the help line advertised on the department’s website.

“It was so maddening,” Assibey-Bonsu told New York Focus. “It was always like, ‘Sorry, we don’t have enough agents to speak to you. Please try back later.’ I tried 9 am, I tried 11 am, I tried 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — it doesn’t matter the time of day.” She couldn’t reach anyone.

Thousands of New Yorkers a week apply for unemployment benefits through the state Department of Labor, which assesses eligibility and makes payments. For many people, it’s a smooth process that can be completed online. But that’s not always the case.

Sometimes, people are told to call the department to complete their application over the phone. Other times, they have questions about how to fill out the complicated form, as making a mistake can lead to legal consequences. And delays in payments prompt others to call for a status update after they haven’t heard back in weeks.

The department offers a hotline for people to call in all of those cases. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when unemployment skyrocketed and the state’s system was strained, it was notoriously difficult to reach the Labor Department for help. But as the unemployment rate has returned to pre-pandemic levels, the problem has persisted, frustrating advocates who help people navigate the benefit.

“It’s sort of a given that you can’t get through,” said Nicole Salk, a senior staff attorney with Brooklyn Legal Services who works on unemployment benefits. “Prior to 2020, it really wasn’t as big of an issue. People could get through on the phone. And then the pandemic happened.”

State legislators and advocates who help people file for unemployment benefits all told New York Focus the same thing: It seems as though nobody answers the phone.

“It has become nearly impossible to get through,” said Jon Bloom, executive director of the Workers Defense League, which operates an unemployment hotline that gets about 100 calls per week and represents people in unemployment appeal cases. “I occasionally talk to people who report getting through to someone. More frequently, people report getting a message that says, ‘We have too many calls.’”

A Labor Department spokesperson did not provide data on the overall percentage of calls that go unanswered. They did, however, provide a snapshot: During the week of June 23, 2025, the department received calls from roughly 42,400 individuals, about 15,200, or a third, of whom spoke with a live agent. That same week, over 36,200 callers “engaged with the Self-Service Virtual Agent,” the spokesperson said. (Some individuals spoke with both a human and virtual agent that week.)

Staffing levels at the department’s call centers have fallen over the past couple of years after they were increased during the pandemic, in part because federal funds to the state’s unemployment system correspond to the volume of claims. In 2022, the department had an average of 344 call center employees at any given moment; in 2024, that number had fallen to 215, according to the Labor Department.

In the absence of human support from the department, many unemployed New Yorkers are turning to their local representatives for help.

Assibey-Bonsu could not reach anyone at the Labor Department, so a friend suggested she contact her representative — Assemblymember Phara Souffrant-Forest — for help.

Only after the Assembly office contacted the department on her behalf was Assibey-Bonsu able to talk to someone at the Labor Department, she said.

After she filed her claim, Assibey-Bonsu needed to provide the Labor Department with additional information for her application, but when she tried to upload documents to the online portal, they didn’t go through. Then she sent documents by fax, but it took weeks to process them, and they still weren’t enough to complete her application. And she couldn’t get anyone on the phone to talk about the problem.

Assibey-Bonsu received her first payment in April, months after she first filed for the benefit. In the interim months, Assibey-Bonsu had to take money out of her 401(k) retirement account to cover her bills. The process “will drive you insane,” she said.

Souffrant-Forest’s office gets about a call a week from constituents struggling to access unemployment benefits who can’t reach anyone at the Department of Labor, chief of staff Karen Narefsky told New York Focus. It’s the single most common reason constituents call the office, she said.

“If you call American Airlines, you know that eventually you’ll press your button and then, boom, somebody will get on the phone,” said Souffrant-Forest. “That’s not the case at the Department of Labor.”

Other legislators also said unemployment is one of the primary reasons for calls to their offices.

“Easily the number one constituent services issue that comes into our office is people having issues filing for unemployment insurance, and specifically getting a hold of anyone at the Department of Labor to move their case forward,” said Claire Valdez, an assemblymember from Queens.

“People file for unemployment and then they wait weeks or months without hearing anything from the DOL,” said Lee. “Some people try calling day after day and have not been successful.”

More people are showing up in person to department-run career centers out of frustration with the system, seeking help and at times threatening violence toward staff, according to the Public Employee Federation, the union that represents some of the agency’s workers.

“Unusual incident reports tied to unemployment insurance frustrations have gone up significantly post-pandemic,” said Scarlett Ahmed, who works at a Labor Department career center and is a council leader at the union.

“Management has acknowledged that it’s significantly higher than before the pandemic,” she said. “They say it’s because claimants have higher expectations than they used to.”

Legislators, advocates, and policy experts see it as a stark failure on the part of the state to provide an essential benefit in a smooth manner.

“The fact that people have to contact their legislators for help in getting through to the Labor Department — that’s an abomination,” said James Parrott, the director of economic and fiscal policy at the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School. “There’s no way to sugarcoat that. That’s a system that’s failing New Yorkers.”

“The New York State Department of Labor continues to invest in and deploy new technologies to meet our customers where they are and provide the most efficient service possible,” a department spokesperson told New York Focus.

The department pointed to upgrades put into place after it awarded a contract to “modernize” the unemployment program. They include a new chatbot and a texting and emailing communication system that can answer questions so people don’t necessarily need to talk to an agent.

The overhaul hasn’t been completed, and the upgrades won’t get rid of the need for human help, advocates said.

“We always say take a drink whenever they mention modernization, because they’ve been talking about that for as long as I’ve been doing this work, which is 20 years,” said Salk, of Brooklyn Legal Services. “And I don’t believe that’s going to solve the problem.”

Beyond the one-week snapshot the department provided, it’s difficult to know just how often New Yorkers are reaching a real person through the unemployment phone line. In January, the department denied a public records request from New York Focus requesting call logs for the phone number that the agency advertises to people who need help filing claims.

On July 7, after the agency denied an appeal, New York Focus brought an Article 78 lawsuit against the agency, arguing that the records must be disclosed under the law. The case is pending.

“This lawsuit is about making sure New Yorkers can keep tabs on what the Department of Labor is doing and whether it is serving the public as it should,” said Michael Linhorst, the attorney at Cornell Law School’s First Amendment Clinic who filed the suit. “The department appears to be trying to misapply an unrelated confidentiality law to keep the records hidden.”

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