New York state's unemployment line is busy

Like Michigan, New York States unemployment line has crashed and people have not been able to get through.
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from bizjournals:

The state’s systems for filing unemployment insurance claims crashed today, yet another sign of how the state is sinking deeper into a recession.

The state Department of Labor, which oversees unemployment insurance claims, received more than 10,000 phone calls an hour on a toll-free hotline today, leading to the crash. The department’s online claim filing system also shut down under the volume of traffic it received.

The crashes come as the state’s unemployment rate has hit 6. 1 percent, up 1.5 percent from the year before. It’s the highest unemployment rate in nearly five years.

Gov. David Paterson’s proposed budget projects that the statewide unemployment rate will top 7 percent by this summer. From October to November 2008, the state had a net loss of 23,500 private-sector jobs, the largest such decline since the month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The telephone claims center and the online claims system are not operational, the department said in a statement. State officials said they do not know when either, or both, claims systems will be fixed.

Updates will be posted on the state Department of Labor’s Web site, www.labor.state.ny.us.

Claimants have until Jan. 11 to file a new claim to get benefits this week.

Update:
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Read more about other states' unemployment systems going down/being busy here:
Virginia
Ohio
New York
Michigan