MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – In-person help for Alabama residents needing assistance with unemployment claims is coming to an end as a new phone appointment system will be established for the new year.
The Alabama Department of Labor, in a news release, said it is ending in-person service at the Crump Senior Center due to health and safety concerns related to the coronavirus. The last dates for such service will be Dec. 28 and Dec. 29. Appointments for those days will be available on the ADOL website, www.labor.alabama.gov, beginning Christmas Day.
Claimants can call 1-800-361-4524 beginning Jan. 3 after 5 p.m. until midnight on Sundays through Thursday to schedule a call back for the next day to set up an appointment. Claimants are encouraged to keep their phones near them for their scheduled callback, the department said. The calls will come from a Montgomery, Alabama number.
“This new callback system will allow us to serve more claimants per day than we’ve been able to previously,” said state Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington. “We’ve been working nonstop to improve our services to unemployed Alabamians and this system will hopefully accomplish that.”
State officials have struggled to keep pace with a staggering number of unemployment claims spurred by the Coronavirus pandemic.