The training center for new hires at the Department of Labor and Training Call Center in Cranston where calls are taken for unemployment insurance.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

CRANSTON — The Department of Labor and Training will soon hire 40 people to help process claims for unemployment benefits, answer phones and handle other tasks at the state’s unemployment insurance call center, agency officials disclosed yesterday.

The new jobs represent the department’s latest effort to deal with the onslaught of claims for benefits — and a flood of e-mails and phone calls from the unemployed — amid the state’s high jobless rate, which in December reached 10 percent, the highest in more than 30 years.

The agency began posting the jobs online last week and already has more than 200 applicants — a sign of how eager many Rhode Islanders are to find work during the recession.

The jobs will be posted on the agency’s Web site — www.dlt.ri.gov/jobsri — through Sunday.

After screening and interviewing applicants, the agency hopes to complete the hiring of all 40 workers within four to five weeks, said the agency’s director, Sandra M. Powell.

“Over time, we do think they’re going to be a critical resource to reduce the backlog,” Powell said yesterday.

As Rhode Island’s unemployment rate began to soar late last year, the number of claims for unemployment benefits skyrocketed, and the agency’s call center did not have the staff to handle the increased demand.

The agency then began ramping up. It hired two new staffers in December, seven last month (who are still in training), and started training seven additional staffers on Monday, said Raymond A. Filippone, the agency’s assistant director who oversees the unemployment insurance program.

The General Assembly last week approved Governor Carcieri’s proposal to bring back some retirees temporarily to help out.

As a result, eight retirees came on board on Monday, Filippone said. The agency expects to bring back about eight more retirees within the next week or so, he said.

The 40 new hires will probably double the call center’s overall staff (not counting the retirees, who are scheduled to work through the end of this month).

The jobs are paid for with federal funds, Powell said. The agency estimates that the U.S. Department of Labor will provide about $3 million between now and Sept. 30 to cover the cost of the new positions, said Filippone and agency spokeswoman Laura Hart.

“There will be enough dollars” to cover both the new hires and the returning retirees, Powell said.

State Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr., D-Smithfield, who has frequently criticized Carcieri’s handling of the situation, said yesterday that the new hires, and the returning retirees, will help.

“The cavalry is on the way, and hopefully people won’t have to wait another three or four months to get their unemployment checks,” Tassoni said.

Tassoni, who is also a business agent for a union that represents a number of the agency’s employees, said that the Carcieri administration should have acted sooner to boost the call center staff.

Overall, the agency is handling about 25,000 calls a week, up from about 24,000 in late November, Powell said.

As of the week ended Jan. 24, about 36,000 people were collecting some type of unemployment benefits through the agency, up from about 20,000 at the same point a year ago, Filippone said yesterday.

For all of last month, the agency paid out about $49 million in benefits, compared with about $26.5 million for January 2008, Filippone and Hart said.

The agency is about four weeks behind in processing claims for unemployment benefits filed online, Filippone said yesterday.

Unable to get their problems resolved, some people have shown up in the lobby of the agency’s headquarters in Cranston.

The agency does not process walk-in claims, but takes the names and numbers of lobby visitors and pledges to get back to them, Hart said.

Shortly after the lobby opened yesterday morning, Brian Carroll, 26, of Cranston, dropped by with his 1½-year-old son, Matthew.

“I had to come down here and see them because you can’t get through” by phone, said Carroll, a landscaper who was laid off for the winter.

He said he applied for benefits several weeks ago, then was told to reapply. “So I reapplied and I’m still waiting,” said Carroll, who fears he will lose his apartment if he does not obtain benefits soon.

The new call center jobs generally will pay $19 an hour, plus benefits. Although the jobs are posted as part time, hours will be flexible; someone could wind up working up to 35 hours a week, state officials said.

Some people have already responded to the online job notice; others were contacted by the agency about the available jobs because, when filing for unemployment benefits, they had listed experience in call center work with such firms as Citizens Bank, Bank of America, MetLife and an auto club, Filippone said. It generally takes four weeks’ training for a newly hired staffer to be able to handle calls to the center with supervision, said Jennifer S. Kinch, principal employment and training manager who oversees the call center.

But it typically takes months of training to ensure a firm grasp of the intricacies of unemployment laws, regulations and procedures — and how they apply to each applicant for benefits, she said.

“It’s not data entry. It’s a complex unemployment insurance system” with rules dictated by federal and state law, she said. The agency plans to begin interviewing applicants for the new jobs within a week or so, Filippone said.

Once the new hires are on board, the agency plans to expand its hours of operation, and also create a second call center to handle the increased volume of claims, calls and e-mails, he said.

It was not clear how long the new hires will remain on board. But Filippone said that, based on previous experience, if call center volume eventually declines, the staff size can be reduced through attrition.

ndowning@projo.com