UTICA -- After the U.S. Senate failed to extend unemployment benefits to people out of work for more than six months, New York Labor Commissioner Colleen Gardner says the department's phones "have been ringing off the hook."

Garder was in Utica Friday visiting a State Labor Department jobs center, and JETNET, a local small business that is hiring the unemployed through programs offered by the state.

Gardner says 80,000 unemployed New Yorkers may soon be without a check. "We're very concerned." Gardner told CNY Central's Jim Kenyon. "We're working with Governor Paterson and we're working with other states to try to see if they could come back with a new package and try to extend those unemployment benefits."

Republican Senate Minority Leader Miitch McConnell says the jobs bill would have added more than $30 billion "to an already staggering $13 trillion national debt."

But Gardner responded, "For every dollar invested in unemployment insurance, it puts $1.62 back into the economy. People who are unemployed they spend money for necessities."

Silvana Gamboa has been out of work since early May. Her anxiety gets worse every day. "It's too many obstacles" Gamboa complains, "That's why I have to ask for benefits. I need an opportunity."

Commissioner Gardner says the Labor Department is trying to steer the unemployed into the various services they offer at jobs centers, but she says for every job opening in New York, there are five applicants.