Waukesha Man Gets No Answer On Unemployment Claims

WAUKESHA, WI — As Wisconsin's unemployment numbers skyrocket and an unprecedented amount of claims pour in, all one laid-off worker in Waukesha wants to know is whether he's going to get any help.

According to one report, a Waukesha man said he had to go six weeks without knowing whether he'd receive unemployment after he was laid off from his job.

According to a WISN 12 report, Matt Pugel told the television station that he was laid off in latte March and filed six unemployment claims — one a week. He also said he's called Workforce Development Centers more than 300 times in the past month to get an answer on his unemployment.

So far, he says he's received no answer whether he's going to be getting unemployment.

On Thursday, the Department of Workforce Development released employment estimates for the month of April. The data shows that Wisconsin lost 439,400 total non-farm and 385,900 private-sector jobs from March 2020 to April 2020.

Wisconsin's labor force participation rate in April was 66.6 percent, and the state's unemployment rate was 14.1 percent, up from 3.1 percent in March 2020.