UPDATE: As of Tuesday morning, July the 5, the Jobs4TN.gov site is working again.
--
A spokesperson for the Department of Labor said the unemployment site Jobs4TN.gov has been down since June 26.
Kimberly Strong is a mother of three from Celina and she was laid off from her auto parts job because of supply chain issues. She has been trying to log on to the website daily.
“Bills are coming due with the beginning of the month or beginning of a new month. So it's a struggle,” said Kimberly Strong.
The Department of Labor said it’s been hacked and is essentially locked out of its own site. But the fix is so far elusive.
“All we know from the vendor is what they're telling us. And right now, they're not saying exactly what happened to the system, we don't know what happened. We have been told through all their initial investigations that no personal data has been compromised, that no personal data has been taken out of their network operation center,” said Chris Cannon with Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development.
Kimberly Strong said after what happened during the pandemic with this same system overwhelmed and unable to process claims the state should have been better prepared for trouble.
“It's the government side, they should have some kind of backup in place for these people that do need this unemployment, especially with ever, you know, places starting to layoff,” said Strong.
Strong is not the only one who thinks so, the chair of the state senate labor committee is saying the same thing and pressuring Governor Bill Lee to get personally involved.
In the meantime, 12,000 people like Kimberly Strong have to sit and wait.
The state recommends for everyone to keep trying every day and if you can’t access it, when its up and running again take care of what was left behind as soon as possible.