Prairie State Wire

A reported 216,000 leisure and hospitality jobs have been lost over the past year, according to Illinois Department of Employment Security data.

According to a recent IDES jobs report that compared the number of jobs in December 2020 to January 2021, the total non-farm sector lost about 504,800 jobs throughout the state over that time, based on their preliminary findings.

The IDES’ unemployment report shows employment sectors through the state struggling, but none more so than the leisure and hospitality sector. 

The leisure and hospitality sector was hit the hardest, with nearly one-third of all jobs in the sector lost throughout the state. Gov. J.B Pritzker only recently lifted executive orders that kept many establishments closed altogether. Still, restrictions are being placed on businesses, such as bars and restaurants, limiting the number of customers allowed.

Drives have been launched throughout the state to mandate schools go to session and society return to normal as the Covid vaccine becomes widely available.

Economists have predicted small businesses and those employed by small businesses will be affected by the lockdown for decades to come.

IDES is responsible for handling unemployment claims for out of work Illinoisans.

IDES has been struggling to fulfill claims as necessary leading some to desperate measure.

Some Illinois residents who are struggling financially due to the COVID-19 pandemic are suffering from severe depression and are becoming suicidal, at least according to some state lawmakers.

Illinois state lawmakers said that some of their constituents have shown signs of severe depression and even suicidal tendencies due to their frustration that they can’t get through to the state’s unemployment agency.

“It’s heartbreaking,” state Rep. Sue Scherer (D-Decatur) said. “They’re saying they’re going to commit suicide and it’s very hard for me and my staff to sleep at night but they’re getting the runaround.”

Scherer said constituents reported being hung up on or laughed at by IDES staff.

According to Center Square, representatives of IDES told them that one of the reasons why their office is hard to reach sometimes is because they are trying to protect their employees from angry constituents. They say that there are some people who have been levelling threats at them because they are not getting the financial help that they need.

Kristin Richards, the IDES director, was present at the committee hearing. She reiterated to the members the gravity of their situation wherein angry constituents have been threatening to commit physical harm to her staff.

Scherer claimed that some of Richards’ staff members weren’t accommodating to her constituents. Scherer even said that some of the IDES staff mocked her constituents or hung up on them.

IDES also confirmed that they have paid out fraudulent claims.  

The agency admitted that while it had “blocked more than 1 million fake claims but haven’t yet revealed how many have slipped through or how much money has been lost,” WGN9 reported on March 11.

“Fraudsters are finding any avenue through which to get in the door and into the system,” an IDES spokeswoman wrote in an email, used in the WGN9 report. “They are continually modifying and evolving their schemes to try to crack state unemployment insurance agencies anti-fraud measures, and … [this] is just one of those schemes.”

Kelly Modjeski Hamilton, the owner of Northwest Side bridal shop I Do Bridal Consignment, received a stack of letters from IDES, asking her to verify unemployment claims for 10 people.

Hamilton said she doesn’t know the names on the letters while one was named under her mother who hasn’t worked in 40 years.

As of February it was reported that 155,765 Illinoisans were waiting on calls from IDES regarding their unemployment’s status.