DENVER -- The Department of Labor and Employment says a new phone line has cut the telephone wait times from two hours to two minutes for some callers.

For others, hold times remain more than an hour long.

The new line is dedicated strictly to callers who are filing new unemployment claims. Labor officials said those callers can get through to the call center almost immediately.

"The number of calls are going down and the wait times are going down," said Department of Labor spokeswoman Cher Haavind.

The labor department launched the new line in early May and numbers show that callers who want to file a new claim are waiting an average of about two minutes before speaking to a specialist.

It's a different story for callers who have more complicated questions.

Timothy Yeaple, who has been unemployed since January, said when he tried to call the Department of Labor in February to tell them that his checking account information had changed, he got only a busy signal for hours on end.

"I was never able to get through at all," said Yeaple. "I would stay on the phone for 30 minutes and then I'd hang up and try again, hang up and try again."

Yeaple eventually gave up on trying to call and made the half-hour drive from Parker to Denver to leave a message in person.

Haavind said for callers like Yeaple, wait times on the main phone line are averaging about one hour, which Haavind said is not ideal, but is an improvement.

"Four months ago, we had up to a two-hour wait time," Haavind said. "An hour on hold is not acceptable. Two hours is obviously not acceptable. Getting somebody with a new claim through immediately, in our minds, we feel is progress."

Haavind said the Department of Labor has been working for months to address the highest call volume they have seen in 30 years.

"It caught many states by surprise in terms of how broad and deep the recession was and nobody knew how long it would be," Haavind said.

In December and January, the unemployment benefits call center added 50 temporary workers to answer phones. Haavind said it took until now to get the federal funding to launch an additional phone line. She said now, the Department of Labor will focus on cutting down wait times on the main line.

"We're working at chipping away at those longer wait times," she said.

To file a new unemployment claim, residents can call the Department of Labor's new phone line at 303-318-9123. All other calls about unemployment benefits, call 303-318-9000.