A vast backlog of California unemployment claims is below 900,000 for the first time since government-ordered business shutdowns to combat the coronavirus began — but state officials may need months to free the bottleneck.

The state Employment Department has whittled away a mammoth backlog of unemployment claims in California, but a staggering number of workers languish in EDD limbo waiting for the government agency to pay or resolve the jobless claims.

The current EDD backlog of jobless claims totals about 890,200, as of Nov. 4, the state agency reported this week.

The Nov. 4 backlog shrank by about 55,900 from the bottleneck of 946,100 unpaid or unresolved claims that were reported for Oct. 28, according to this news organization’s compilation of figures released through a special EDD dashboard to track the logjam of claims.

“We continue to see progress in resolving backlogged initial claims and continued claims (those that already have a claim established) that take longer than 21 days to complete,” Loree Levy, a spokesperson for the state EDD, said in an email to this news organization.

An unemployment claim ends up in the EDD backlog total if it falls into one of two categories: an initial claim that has taken more than 21 days to pay or be disqualified, or a continuing claim for which at least one payment has been made but it has taken more than 21 days for the EDD to make the next payment or disqualify the claimant.

The current pace of fixing the backlog raises the question, however, as to how long will it take for the EDD to completely unwind the tangle of unpaid claims.

Over the most recent four weeks, the EDD has reduced the backlog by an average of 112,900 claims a week. If that pace continues, it would state the state agency another eight weeks, or two months, to remedy the backlog.

Under this scenario, it won’t be until early January — after the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day — until all the workers trapped in the backlog quagmire are getting the payments they are owed or have been told they don’t qualify.

The EDD’s broken call center, glitches on the agency’s website, and countless complaints from workers who lost their jobs who said they haven’t received unemployment benefits prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to form a Strike Team to advise the EDD

“We have efforts and initiatives underway that give us confidence that we are on track to eliminate the backlog in January as pledged with the release of the Strike Team report,” Levy said.

However, a more disturbing scenario could point to a resolution well after January.

If the EDD resolves or pays backlogged claims at the pace of the most recent week — 56,000 a week — it could take 16 weeks, or four months, for the state government to completely catch up.

That sluggish pace would put the elimination of the backlog during sometime around late February or early March — or roughly one year after the business shutdowns began.

As of Nov. 4, an estimated 295,9000 initial claims were stuck in a backlog, a decline of 4,500 from the prior week. The backlog of continuing claims totaled 594,300, a decrease of 51,400 from the week before.

Some California workers say they have been waiting for months to be paid by the EDD.

One worker who sent an email to this news organization on Friday said the EDD has failed to make a first-time payment for 130 days.

Bob, which is the name the worker used in the email, reported he filed his unemployment claim months ago.

The EDD approved the claim, Bob was informed how much he would be paid, and he was given an account for the unemployment insurance payments and updates. That occurred around late June, according to Bob.

“Since then nothing,” Bob stated in the email. “Not one single check issued or a reply to numerous emails asking what was the problem, in over five months.”