ATLANTA — The Georgia Department of Labor announced Thursday that they have processed more unemployment claims since March 21, 2020, than they have in the last 10 years combined.

GDOL said they have processed 4.8 million claims.

The department also said that it has been hampered by tens of thousands of fraudulent claims.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

“Over 60,000 individuals who have recently refiled for payments for a second year went back to work during the last year while still receiving unemployment benefits and did not report that they had returned to work,” GDOL said.

TRENDING STORIES:

• Rapper ‘makes it rain’ on classmates at their graduation ceremony
• VIDEO: Did Knicks fan spit on Hawks Trae Young Wednesday night?
• Georgia family says they’re stuck in a house infested with snakes, rats, cockroaches

The department said almost 75% of people currently filing claims are failing the identity verification requirement required by Congress.

Another 85% of filers were not laid off but have quit or been fired, according to GDOL. Those claims are typically not eligible.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

All of these challenges require individual attention and are slowing the processing procedures,” officials said. “Couple those investigations with the majority of recently filed claims failing to verify their identity and we are left manually sifting through a myriad of fraudulent claims searching for the small percentage that are actually valid.”

Over 200,000 jobs are listed on the EmployGeorgia website.

Claimants are being encouraged to register with Employ Georgia before weekly work search is mandated in late June to avoid interruptions in their payments.

©2021 Cox Media Group