In less than a month, the State Department of Labor and Industry will roll out its new unemployment compensation system.
The highly-anticipated new system will go live on June 8.
"I do think this new technology will greatly improve our business processes allowing us to respond to employers, claimants and stakeholders much more quickly," said L&I Acting Secretary Jennifer Berrier.
But Berrier says the current system will be offline from June 3 to June 7. No biweekly claims will be filed during that time.
"On Tuesday, June 8 the new system will come online and everyone will be moving to a weekly filing pattern," said Berrier.
People scheduled to file their biweekly claims during that span can do so between May 30 and June 2.
She says the department is hosting free online seminars to help claimants become more familiar with the new system.
The department expects the system change to have minimal disruption for claimants.
“Only a small portion of claimants are anticipated to be impacted by the offline period,” said Acting Secretary Berrier. “Teams of IT and UC experts continue working to tighten the offline timeframe and conduct intensive end-to-end testing at critical stages in the process to ensure as smooth a transition as possible.”
As part of that transition, the department has hired hundreds of new customer service representatives.
The state's current system is nearly 40-years-old and was heavily criticized during the pandemic.
The change doesn't impact those receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.