With a backlog of 600,000 cases, California's Employment Development Department will temporarily "pause" accepting unemployment claims until Oct. 5.
The state's unemployment backlog is increasing by around 10,000 cases every day because the department can currently only process 2,400 claims per day.
The EDD plans to hire 3,000 new staffers, rework its website and make the entire operation run more efficiently ... within the next few weeks.
For the newly-unemployed, Oct. 5 can't come soon enough.
For the EDD, Oct. 5 sounds frighteningly close.
On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom sought to reassure Californians that a faster, streamlined process to file for unemployment is on the way.
Though the process may change (hopefully for the better), KQED has a helpful guide if you need to file for unemployment.