photo by: Screenshot/Kansas Department of Labor

From left, Delía García, secretary of the Kansas Department of Labor, and Shawn Yancy, deputy director for the state’s unemployment program, speak during a webcast Wednesday, April 8, 2020.

Millions of additional unemployment dollars did start flowing to Kansans last week, according to the latest numbers from state officials, but technology problems are still stopping many from applying for the benefits.

Kansas paid $14.8 million in unemployment benefits for the week ending April 4, which was up from $3.8 million the week before, according to the weekly report from the Kansas Department of Labor. Even more striking: 37,150 people received unemployment benefits in Kansas for the week, up from about 9,400 the week before.

The weekly report showed 2,129 Douglas County residents made initial claims during the week. The only good news in that number is it was slightly less than the week before, when 2,304 Douglas County residents had made initial claims for unemployment assistance. It would be premature, though, to say the pace of job losses for Douglas County residents is slowing, as there is an unknown number of county residents who have tried to file for unemployment but have been unable to because of technology problems at the labor department.

In an online briefing on Wednesday, labor department leaders continued to apologize for the technology problems, which include a slow website and a phone system that drops calls. On Wednesday, Kansas Secretary of Labor Delía García highlighted that the mainframe computer system dates to the 1970s, but also said “we’re not trying to make excuses.”

The latest numbers from the state show that food service workers and manufacturing employees continue to be the hardest hit by the downturn spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 16% of all Kansas unemployment claims for the week were from the accommodation and food services industry, while nearly 15% were from the manufacturing sector.

The pace of claims from those two industries, however, did slow some from the week before. But two other industries saw the pace at which their employees were filing for unemployment quicken. The retail industry and the health care industry both saw spikes in the number of workers who filed for unemployment. The number of retail workers who filed for unemployment this week compared with last week increased by almost 45%. In the health care industry, the increase was almost 37%. Layoffs in the construction industry also increased by almost 27%.

Here’s a look at the Kansas industries with the largest number of employees filing for unemployment. The first figure is the number of claims filed for the week ending April 4. The second figure is the number of people who filed since mid-March when the COVID-19 virus began to disrupt the state’s economy.

• Manufacturing: 6,818 (25,868)

• Accommodation and food service: 7,271 (23,528)

• Health care and social assistance: 6,409 (14,000)

• Retail trade: 6,505 (12,241)

• Other services: 4,337 (9,500)

• Administrative and waste services: 2,684 (5,761)

• Construction: 2,203 (4,804)

• Arts, entertainment and recreation: 1,637 (4,545)

The state numbers show Sedgwick County, home to Wichita’s aviation industry, continues to have the largest number of new unemployment claims, with 11,432. Johnson County, the state’s most populous, is next at a little more than 9,300. Douglas County continues to have the fifth-highest claims numbers, which is in line with its population as the fifth-most-populous county in the state.

The state’s numbers also showed one other interesting statistic: Women are now losing their jobs faster than men in the state. After having split nearly equally last week, women made up 55% of the people filing for unemployment insurance for the week ending April 4.

At Wednesday’s briefing, state labor department officials did not have further updates on the two big questions in the unemployment world: When will the $600 weekly payment approved by Congress start showing up on checks, and when will the self-employed and independent contractors start receiving benefits? The department said it was still working to get systems in place to launch both of those new programs, but said it could not yet commit to a date.

Self-employed individuals who are seeking unemployment, though, are encouraged to start filing their claims now, even though the system is not yet functional. State officials say that will speed up their eventual approval for benefits.