Do contested ESD claims take longer? Stuck in adjudication for 3 weeks with no notification

If your employer contests your claim, ESD will notify you and give you the opportunity to respond to their allegations. You would see this as an 'issue' or 'alert' in your eServices account, and they typically send an email notification as well. The fact that you aren't seeing any issues listed suggests your claim might be in regular adjudication for other reasons - they could be verifying your employment history, wages, or other factors. Three weeks is unfortunately pretty normal for adjudication these days, especially for restaurant industry claims which often get extra scrutiny.

3 weeks is nothing lol. mine took 9 weeks last summer and nobody contested it. the ESD system is just slow af

When my claim was contested by my former employer last year, I received a notification in my eServices account within 5 days of filing. There was a questionnaire I had to fill out explaining my side of the separation, and then it went into adjudication for about 6 weeks. The system is definitely slow, but you SHOULD be notified if there's a contest happening. One thing to try - have you called ESD to check on the status? I know their phone lines are ridiculous, but if you really want to know what's happening, that's your best bet.

I was in a similar situation back in February. My claim was stuck in adjudication for almost a month with zero explanation. After countless failed attempts to reach someone at ESD, I discovered Claimyr (claimyr.com) which helped me get through to an actual ESD agent in about 30 minutes. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ?si=26TzE_zGms-DODN3 When I finally spoke with an agent, I found out they were just waiting on verification from my previous employer about my work hours, and there wasn't actually any contest happening. The agent was able to expedite the process once I got through. Might be worth trying if you're worried about rent coming up.

i got fired too and my boss told me to my FACE he was going to fight my unemployment claim but then i never heard anything from esd about it??? i still got approved after 5 weeks so maybe he didn't actually do it lol

The adjudication process is completely broken right now. In 2025, you'd think ESD would have figured out how to process claims efficiently, but nope! I've been dealing with the unemployment system for over 15 years (I work in seasonal construction), and it's actually WORSE now than it was during COVID. For what it's worth, they WILL backpay all the weeks once approved, but that doesn't help when you've got bills due now. If your employer contested it, you would have been notified - the lack of notification is just typical ESD inefficiency. KEEP FILING YOUR WEEKLY CLAIMS no matter what!!

One other thing to consider - your claim could be selected for random identity verification, which adds time but doesn't show as an "issue" in your account. This happened to me last year. I had no idea until I finally got through to an agent who told me they were waiting on ID verification that had never been requested from me! Once they resent the request, I was able to upload my documents and get approved within a week.

Update on my situation - I finally got through to ESD this morning after using the Claimyr service that was suggested here. Turns out my claim was flagged for additional wage verification because I had worked in two different restaurants in the base year. The agent told me this is common for restaurant industry claims and has nothing to do with my employer contesting anything. They're expediting my claim now and said I should see a decision within 5-7 business days. What a relief! Thank you everyone for your help and suggestions!