Oregon Department of Unemployment provides update on processing claims, pandemic unemployment assistance

OREGON — Oregonians who are currently collecting unemployment will benefit from a recently passed senate bill.

State senate bill 17-01 was passed in Monday’s special session. The acting director for the unemployment department says it will
allow people to earn more money each week, before impacting weekly unemployment insurance benefits.

“We’re advising people it could be up to 6 weeks for us to complete the review. We will notify people when we complete the review of their form seeking those retroactive changes and people can expect to receive retroactive payments within a week,” said acting director, David Gerstenfeld.

Gerstenfeld says they’re also adding more staff at the department to increase the pace of processing claims.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance funding form (PUA) is now available online in Spanish.