AWS Public Sector Blog
Author: Danny Lee
Danny is the labor and workforce leader at Amazon Web Services (AWS) for US state and local government. He previously led product management for New York’s unemployment insurance modernization project and helped launch a $2.1 billion unemployment relief program for essential workers. Danny also served as the state's ombudsman for unemployment insurance. He has 15-plus years of experience advocating for unemployed workers.
Reimagining unemployment contact centers
Benefit programs like unemployment insurance are complicated and time-sensitive with weekly eligibility requirements. As a result, contact centers routinely experience high call volume that increases exponentially during economic downturns. Yet for many constituents, contact centers are the only lifeline to get the answers they need while looking for work. More than ever, agencies can benefit from AI and automation to reduce call volume, improve self-service, and empower staff productivity—not just to maintain service levels during low unemployment, but to scale and rise to the occasion of unexpected surges in demand.
Why unemployment insurance systems belong in the cloud
States are reevaluating the resiliency, security, and adaptability of their unemployment insurance (UI) systems. The AWS whitepaper, Why Unemployment Insurance Systems Belong in the Cloud, explores lessons learned from the pandemic – and provides opportunities for a path forward. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to modernization, we propose five tenets to anchor a vision of modern UI benefits systems and explore the different technical approaches to realize that vision.