Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/20/2011 -- Around 8,000 unemployed Coloradans lose their jobless benefits every month, as they become 99ers.

As of December 2010, about 30,000 Coloradans have fallen off the unemployment benefits because they have been unemployed for over 99 weeks. The 99ers, as the media has called them, are mostly blue-collar and over the age of 50. But several of them also have years of experience in white-collar jobs including at middle-management levels.

Local newspapers in Colorado carry stories of jobless people, especially those over 50, applying for hundreds of jobs and still getting hardly any interviews. Colorado’s unemployment rate was 8.6 percent in November. Right now, the state is not entitled to get Tier 4 benefits for its jobless. That is conditional on the December unemployment report. If the state’s jobless rate is at or above 8.5 percent, it will again be eligible for Tier 4 benefits.

Once that happens, thousands of Coloradans who lost their jobless benefits will be able to get their claims reinstated for another six weeks. But depending on Tier 4 benefits is not a very good idea according to A. Harrison Barnes. Barnes, who is CEO of job search engine Hound, says that Congress does not seem very interested in having a Tier 5 of jobless benefits. His observation is that most of the media is ignoring 99ers, and hardly any are advocating for them. “Getting a job, any job is the most important thing for unemployed people, anywhere, especially in Colorado”. Hound so far has been able to 7,000 jobs in Colorado.