TALLAHASSEE – Floridians who call the state for help with unemployment claims should expect wait times to surpass an hour.

“The best time to call, and maybe after a lot of people hear it today it won’t be, is late afternoon,” Department of Management Services Secretary Jonathan Satter told reporters Tuesday.

We’ve had 15 million phone calls since March 15,” said Satter, who was put in charge of the Department of Economic Opportunity’s troubled CONNECT online unemployment system in April.

As part of changes to improve the system amid massive job losses because of the coronavirus, the state has scrambled to bring on more computer servers, set up a backup system for people to apply and allowed people to submit claims on paper applications.

Among the unique claims, 901,962 people had been found eligible for state unemployment benefits, 97,681 were eligible for federal benefits, and 370,982 had been deemed ineligible.