https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/06/all-hands-on-deck-california-agency-strains-under-unemployment-claim-boom-caused-by-coronavirus/

For weeks now, the employees at California’s Employment Development Department have seen up close the unprecedented tsunami of jobless claims wash across the state. In a little more than three weeks, the strained department received 1.9 million unemployment insurance claims as more and more workers lose jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. That’s just shy of the 2.2. million claims processed during the entire 2008 Great Recession.

“We’re used to being very busy in a recessionary period, but this is like nothing we’ve been doing before,” said Loree Levy, EDD’s deputy director of public affairs. “We’re all working around the clock; we’re getting very little sleep.”