The Tribune

THE National Insurance Board has now paid over 34,000 unemployment benefit claimants more than $60 million in benefits.

This number continues to grow daily, NIB said in a statement.

"Most recipients have received eight to ten weeks of benefit, as NIB prepares to process payments up to the 13 weeks maximum over the next week for many recipients," the agency said.

"However, NIB has found a number of cases where the benefit has been suspended automatically in the system, pending manual verifications of continued unemployment or because contributions continued to be paid by the employer following the lay off dates. In many cases, the contributions had been paid in error and the benefit payments will be allowed to proceed."

To address these matters, NIB said it has been working closely with its IT vendor to make the necessary changes which are expected to be resolved by the end of this week.

NIB said the unemployment benefit is paid at the rate of 50 percent of the average insured wages for a period of up to 13 weeks. The maximum unemployment weekly benefit is therefore $335 per week, that is 50 percent of wage ceiling of $670.

The wage ceiling is adjusted biennially to keep pace with inflation, NIB said, adding it has fielded a number of complaints from customers in this regard.

People are only eligible for the unemployment benefit (UEB) if they have at least 52 contributions filed with NIB, and meet the contribution criteria. Customers are ineligible for the unemployment benefit if they are age 65 years or older.

"NIB has noted the increase in complaints with respect to unemployment payments and advises that a team has been established to review each complaint received and to advise the customer accordingly," the agency said.