JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Some people whose jobs were to help Florida’s unemployed are now unemployed themselves.
These call center agents were employed by Titan Technologies and KForce, third party contractors hired to provide call center services for the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.
“As unemployment benefit claims decrease in the state of Florida, and the needs of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity evolve, a workforce rebalance was necessary at Titan Technologies,” said Elton Gumbel with Titan Technologies in a statement. "We continue to adjust our customer care solutions so that we can efficiently meet expectations without incurring unnecessary costs to the state.”
Unemployment expert Vanessa Brito said this is a bad time to cut staff.
“This is the same problem we had last year,” Brito said “They are not thinking ahead.”
Brito points out the agents are being laid off just before implementing new unemployment program changes from the American Rescue Plan.
Program changes often come with a lot of confusion, questions and even glitches, which clogs up DEO phone lines.
“Something they could answer if they were still there,” Brito said.
Some agents received the unexpected email terminating their employment the same day it was sent.
“We’ve received direction from Titan that resources are being realigned and the DEO project, which you are a part of, is being adjusted,” the email to laid off employees said.
Brito said ironically, she now has many of these laid off call center agents coming to her for help with their troubled unemployment claims.
“They’re having the same issues and they can’t navigate it,” Brito said. “And they worked for the agency. What does that tell you? How broken is the system.”
Meanwhile, unemployed Floridan’s are worried the layoffs will create further delays when contacting DEO, which was already a struggle.
Titan Technologies did not disclose how many employees were laid off.
Neither DEO nor KForce replied to FCN’s questions on the subject.