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UNION — Local residents will soon have to drive to Spartanburg to get state unemployment services.

In a statement released Monday, the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce announced plans to “regionalize UI (Unemployment Insurance) services by shifting from lower volume centers to higher volume centers. DEW will strive to minimize any loss of services throughout the state with additional self-service and automated options, and we will make a continued effort to minimize as much impact to South Carolina’s citizens as possible.”

The result of this regionalization will be that unemployment insurance services will be no longer be provided at 16 of the DEW’s 56 SC Works career centers. The Union County SC Works career centers will be one of those centers that no longer provides unemployment insurance services as of February 19. Those services will instead be provided by the Spartanburg County SC Works office at 364 S. Church St., Spartanburg.

The reductions are due to a loss of federal funding.

The DEW website (http://dew.sc.gov/) recommends that persons affected by the closings “take advantage of our online services using the My Benefits web portal.”

Using the portal enables claimants to:

• File initial and weekly claims

• Change your contact information (address, phone number, email address)

• Change tax withholding option

• Retrieve 1099 information

• Check benefits status

• Change payment method

The website also states that claimants can file weekly claims by phone through the DEW’s TelClaim system at 1-866-831-1724.

Union County claimants requiring in-person services or more in-depth information may obtain it by visiting the Spartanburg County SC Works office. The office can be contacted by phone at 864-573-7231, by fax at 864-582-1450, or by email at Spartanburg-UIER-Responses-DL@dew.sc.gov.