He called for unemployment help and was hired instead to help other laid off workers

Gregory Fulton, 55, had been unemployed and struggling to find work for six months before the coronavirus pandemic even began. After more than a decade as a supervisor of a call center in his hometown of Kingstree, Fulton had been laid off at the start of October 2019.

On April 3, after a string of unsuccessful attempts to be hired as a teacher or a specialist in information technology — what he earned a bachelor’s degree in — he realized something was wrong. There was an issue in his employment portal through the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce. Fulton called in for help that Friday.

Around the same time, millions of workers across the United States and thousands in South Carolina were losing their jobs. DEW had hired contractors to exponentially increase the customer service workforce as calls clogged the department’s phone lines.

Eventually, Fulton got someone on the phone — Ansley Ellis, a “polite and genuine” customer service representative for Recruiting Solutions, one of DEW’s contractors. Ellis apologized for the inconvenience, and told Fulton there was an influx of calls. He had a proposition.

“Well, since you’re taking too many calls, maybe you could let me take some calls for you and help you out,” Fulton said he told Ellis, half-joking.

He got the job. The following Wednesday, he started remote work as a customer service representative. Fulton joined the ranks of hundreds of call center workers DEW has recruited in recent weeks to meet demand as unemployment claims mount.

“We had never done anything quite like this,” Recruiting Solutions President Cam Varner said, describing how his small company had to quickly find resources to help DEW.

In 10 days, Recruiting Solutions went from 15 call center representatives to more than 100, according to Varner. It wasn’t easy, he said — workers needed to have certain skills, software, Internet access, computer storage capacity, and a quiet workspace. They also had to be trained from a distance on how to answer questions about unemployment insurance.

In addition to ramping up call center staffing by 400% in a few weeks, DEW has also had to adjust to unprecedented usage of its services and programs, said the agency’s Chief Administrative Officer, Jamie Suber. The department is working with its technology vendor, Capgemini, to reconfigure its web-based unemployment insurance claims system to accommodate new users, Suber said.

The federal CARES Act signed into law on March 27 includes financial assistance and expanded unemployment benefits to workers who would otherwise be ineligible for them. And although the federal government has prepared an aid package to fund the new programs, states are responsible for processing the claims and distributing the money.

The upgraded system must be more sophisticated, able to handle claims from self-employed individuals, non-profit workers, contractors and gig workers. It also must manage claims from South Carolinians who exhausted their unemployment benefits before the coronavirus outbreak.

And, Suber said, there has to be a way for DEW to track usage of the different programs and report usage to the federal government.

In recent weeks, some states with decades-old claims systems have had to reimagine their unemployment insurance processes. That’s not the case in South Carolina, DEW spokesperson Heather Biance said.

In 2017, South Carolina hired Capgemini to modernize the state’s online unemployment insurance system with supplemental funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. Because of that, the state is in a better position to adapt to current needs resulting from the pandemic and economic shutdown, Biance said.

“Not saying that everything’s been perfect but compared to some other states we’ve seen, we’re like, ‘Oh thank goodness,’” Biance said.

South Carolina paid out $53 million in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) on April 12, about a week after states received CARES Act guidance from the Department of Labor. FPUC tacks an additional $600 per week onto the benefits of those who previously qualified for S.C. unemployment insurance.

The state is still stuck playing a waiting game though, Suber said. South Carolina needs federal funding and it needs to finish system upgrades before implementing two more programs: Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC).

PUA gives compensation to people who weren’t previously eligible for unemployment benefits, such as gig, non-profit, self-employed and contracted workers. PEUC provides up to 13 additional weeks of benefits to people who have used up South Carolina’s standard 20 weeks of benefits.

“The hard part isn’t receiving the money,” Suber said. “The hard part is configuring your systems and figuring out how to make those payments.”

While DEW waits, unemployed and furloughed workers must wait, too. Fulton, the customer service representative, said it’s easy to relate to the people he speaks to — their frustration at the situation, the pending bills. Not long ago, he was the one waiting for a call back from DEW agents. Now, he makes it a point to reassure callers.

“I don’t take things personally, and I’m the type of person that my cup is always half-full, optimistic,” he said. “So when I get on the phone and somebody’s stressed, my thing is to try to get them to understand how much I identify with their situation. I’ve been on the other side of the phone calling there and trying to get my information straight.”

Fulton said he learned a few important things about finding a way through the South Carolina unemployment insurance process. The first and most important is to become familiar with the benefits portal by spending time clicking through all of the tabs. There is much more information there than people think, Fulton said.

The other thing he learned from his mother: closed mouths don’t get fed.

“Sometimes, something will pop up when you least expect it. Don’t be afraid to ask for the job,” he said.

After his temporary job with DEW ends in a year or later, Fulton said he’ll marry his fiancee, Pquillia Montek Johnson, and keep pursuing his dream job in education or IT. If nothing else, he’s determined to keep making payments on his new Ford F-150 truck.

“Somebody will hire me,” he said.

This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 1:45 PM.