Unemployment Claims Climbs Over 200,000 Amid Oklahoma's Coronavirus Outbreak

Oklahoma saw more than 51,000 new first-time filings for unemployment last week, pushing the number of unemployed to more than 200,000 in the state.

OESC Executive Director Robin Roberson said the revised numbers may actually be closer to 65,000 new claims and 12 percent unemployment.

Because of that, they are ramping up the number of employees available to help callers.

The wait time on Thursday is only about 31 minutes compared to 6 to 8 hours in previous weeks.

They're also transforming their website to be more user friendly and handle the large amount of traffic.

On Friday at 1 p.m., the agency will hold a first of its kind virtual town hall, where Oklahomans can ask questions and provide feedback.

"We wanted to have a little bit of a longer forum that would allow us, the type of format that we needed to allow us to answer questions in depth,” said Roberson. “It's difficult for people to kind of get these snippets in social media or in interviews such as this. We wanted to really clearly be able to answer a lot of questions."

The OESC invited about 30,000 claimants to participate, but anyone can be a part of it, you just have to register.

It's free and you can register here.