WHY DOES ESD MAKE EVERYTHING SO COMPLICATED?!!!! I had this EXACT same issue and had to call 67 TIMES before someone would help me! Their system is DESIGNED to make people give up on getting their benefits! The fact that it just silently fails without telling you there's missing information is criminal negligence!!

I had a similar issue but mine was because I had the wrong account number not routing number. They ended up sending paper checks instead for like a month before I figured it out. Maybe check your mail?

Don't panic yet! The ESD system sometimes slows down processing times when they're doing back-end updates or when they have higher claim volumes. I've had claims stay in 'processing-ivr' for up to 5 business days before suddenly switching to 'paid' without any action on my part. That said, I'd recommend checking your Notices/Letters section in eServices to see if they've sent you any requests for information that you might have missed. If there's nothing there and you hit day 5 with no movement, then it's definitely time to call.

Just want to update everyone - my claim that was stuck in 'processing-ivr' finally moved to 'paid' this morning. It took 6 days total. I never got through to ESD on the phone, but it resolved itself. So sometimes it really is just a delay in their system without any actual issues. Hope this helps calm some nerves!

dont worry to much about the job search stuff when ur going back to work. just put that u looked at the union job board and checked indeed and ur good

Update: Finally got through to ESD this morning after trying the different browser suggestion (plus using that Claimyr service someone mentioned). They confirmed I should select 'temporarily laid off' and enter my return date. The agent submitted a backdate request for my Christmas week too! She said standby status is now mainly for employer-requested situations with special circumstances, and most construction workers with 1-2 week gaps should just do the job search requirements. Thanks everyone for your help!

my friend works at esd (not saying more than that) and says they're supposed to respond to governor inquiries within 48hrs but nobody gets in trouble when they don't. its all about which agent gets assigned to your case. some are good some dgaf

Quick update for everyone following this thread: ESD recently changed their processing priorities. They're now responding to governor's office inquiries within 3-5 business days for simple issues, but employer disputes like yours are taking 7-10 business days because they need to contact the employer for their side. This change happened in February 2025, so some older posts about getting immediate results after contacting the governor's office are no longer reflecting current timeframes.

After thinking about this more, I realized there's one more thing to consider - if you waited until January to file, the Oct-Dec quarter would become part of your base year, but you'd lose the earliest quarter (which might be lower anyway). If your wages were significantly higher in October, that might actually help.\n\nHowever, this only makes sense if:\n1. You can financially manage without unemployment until January\n2. Your October wages were high enough to offset losing a quarter from the previous year\n3. You don't risk exceeding the earnings limit for any weeks you might try to claim in November/December\n\nJust something to consider as an alternative approach.

That's a really interesting strategy I hadn't considered. I'd lose January-March 2024 wages, which were decent but not great. And October 2025 was actually very strong with lots of overtime as we rushed to finish projects before winter. \n\nI have some savings I could stretch through December if needed. Definitely going to run the numbers on this option. Thanks for the creative thinking!