NJ websites crash, including unemployment, frustrating filers

TRENTON — For the second Sunday in a row, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development saw its website go down temporarily. Unlike a week ago, the outage appeared to be briefer, while also extending to other state-run websites.

"All state websites are experiencing technical issues. The state Office of Information Technology is actively working to bring these websites back up as soon as possible," according to a statement from the Department of Labor to New Jersey 101.5 News.

As reported by NJ.com, the website outage appeared around 11 a.m. As of 1:30 p.m., all New Jersey websites appeared to be operating normally.

The latest issues happened the first weekend that 200,000 self-employed, independent contractors and gig workers in NJ began to claim Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. On Friday, Gov. Phil Murphy said such workers accounted for most of the state's unresolved claims.

As of April 30, more than 930,000 new unemployment claims have been filed since the pandemic hit NJ.

Around 622,000 New Jersey residents were receiving unemployment benefits for the week ending April 18, which amounted to 15.5% of workers covered by unemployment insurance.

According to the department, weekly initial claims for 2020 topped 1 million — for a 524% jump.

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