Those left jobless by Hurricane Ian, mainly the thousands of people who worked in the tourism industry in Sanibel, Fort Myers and Naples and Pine Island, are about to learn whether the state’s improved unemployment website will handle the load more effectively than it did during the COVID-19 pandemic. It better. These hurricane-stunned Floridians do not need another headache.
In 2020, when the pandemic left service, hospitality and retail workers from Miami to the Panhandle without employment, many experienced inhumane wait times and log-on problems with the CONNECT system to claim to request benefits. CONNECT crashed repeatedly. The unemployed could not be blamed for thinking the state did not want them to receive benefits.
Now it’s a new year and a new disaster for Florida’s working people, many of whom helped sustain the tourism industry in hard-hit Lee and Charlotte counties.
