In the wake of mass firings of federal employees, the Maryland Department of Labor is gearing up for additional unemployment assistance claims.

Since January, President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to downsize the government through a hiring freeze, the firing of longtime and probationary workers and an offer to pay employees to resign — moves that federal workers and state leaders have protested.

Maryland is home to about 160,000 federal civilian workers, one of the highest concentrations in the country. But for now, the size of impact to the state and its unemployment system resulting from the effort to slash the federal workforce remain uncertain.

“We haven’t yet seen any significant change to the unemployment insurance claims,” said Maryland Secretary of Labor Portia Wu. “That’s not to say there haven’t been impacts on jobs — we only get those numbers when people actually file for unemployment insurance, and of course, there are a lot of factors that influence when or if people do that.”

But what Wu does know is that there could be additional claims coming, and the department is taking steps to prepare.

It has already changed the state’s unemployment insurance system to reduce “bottlenecks,” Wu said, and added new tools for identity verification after pandemic-era fraud. The department is also in the process of adding more staff in case of increased unemployment, though Wu said it was too soon to say how many more people could be added.

A separate FAQ section explaining explains eligibility requirements, the application process and benefits for federal employees who may be seeking unemployment insurance is available on the Department of Labor’s website.

Federal workers should file claims in the jurisdiction of their duty station, Wu said. Maryland residents who work in Washington, for example, should file there to avoid delays and frustrations.

People who worked for private sector employers that contracted with the federal government and lost their jobs are eligible to apply for the state’s regular unemployment benefits.

The department is already seeing an uptick in interest and usage of its online resources, Wu said. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore has also launched a website compiling resources for Maryland’s federal employees and contractors who are impacted by layoffs, firings and federal funding changes.

This wouldn’t be the first time Maryland has dealt with a significant influx of claims. Unemployment filings surged during the pandemic, overwhelming the state’s system, and tens of thousands of Marylanders reported difficulties filing claims and receiving benefits.

Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, said at a Friday news conference that the pace at which the federal firings happen will have an impact — something the state learned during the pandemic. But he has not heard about people having issues accessing the unemployment system yet this year.

“We’re looking for options, we’re looking for other things that we can do,” Ferguson said when asked about legislation that would assist federal workers. “But the reality is we have very tight fiscal restraints that we’re going to have to rely on our current social safety nets like the UI program, make sure that it is running at full capacity for the potential 30,000 [workers] that may be displaced as a result of these cuts.”

Some state lawmakers are already seeking a way to help.

Senate Bill 683 and House Bill 1424 would rename the existing Federal Government Shutdown Employee Assistance Loan Fund to the Federal Government Employee Assistance Loan Fund. The measure would expand the fund to allow federal workers affected by mass layoffs or closure of government agencies or departments to utilize the program.

Del. Jazz Lewis, a Prince George’s County Democrat sponsoring the House bill, said Friday that the “butchering” of federal workers is a “catastrophe” that will hurt Maryland’s economy.

“The goal is to show we’ve got their back,” he said of the legislation.

But Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s lone Republican in Congress, have not entirely disagreed with the workforce cuts.

“If we believe that the solution to our economic problems in this country is increasing the size of the federal workforce, we will fall far behind every other country in the world,” he said last week. “If we have government workers, for instance, with USAID, who are complicit in the cover-ups of these schemes to get money to foreign countries that would be objectionable to Americans, they probably shouldn’t be employed by the federal government.”

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