Computer transition will affect some Employment Department services

The pending transfer of data to a new automated system will interrupt some services by the Oregon Employment Department.

During the transition to the new system, people will be unable to file claims, check the status of their claims or update claim information on the current system. The Unemployment Insurance Contact Center — 877-FILE-4-UI — will close from Feb. 28 through March 1, and will reopen at 8 a.m. March 4. The center is closed on weekends.

Staff at Oregon Employment Department offices and WorkSource Oregon centers will be unable to respond to specific questions about claims.

The automated weekly claim line, 877-982-8920, also will be closed during the transition.

The key deadlines are:

Wednesday, Feb. 28: Weekly claims for unemployment benefits for the week of Feb. 18-24 must be filed by 5 p.m. in the current system. If people file claims for this week after the deadline, benefit payments will be delayed. For new unemployment benefit claims, the deadline is one day earlier at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 27.

Monday, March 4: The new automated system goes live. Claims for the week of Feb. 18-24 can be backdated.

Current benefit recipients of unemployment insurance and related programs, such as Work Share, have received automated phone calls and letters in the mail with these deadlines.

People can file claims for the week of Feb. 25-March 2 when the new system goes live or the automated weekly claim phone line.

The new system is known as Frances Online, in honor of Frances Perkins, U.S. labor secretary under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945 and the first woman to lead a Cabinet department.

Once the new system is operational, people will have to create accounts for it. More information will be provided via unemployment.oregon.gov .

“A serious outage like this is normal for a big technology project. It is part of the necessary process to upgrade to our new system,” said Lindsi Leahy, director of the agency's Unemployment Insurance Division.

“We know some things will not go as planned. But we will adapt and respond as needed.”

The U.S. Labor Department granted Oregon $89.3 million back in 2009 for a system to replace the one in use since 1993 — a system that relies on a computer language (COBOL) that dates back to 1959. After a series of delays, the agency began to proceed and the 2021 Legislature approved $106 million, which includes work on Paid Leave Oregon, which was not contemplated in the original project.

Agency Director David Gerstenfeld said the first two phases of the transition have been completed successfully.

The first involved the transfer of employer data; employers are assessed payroll taxes that go into the unemployment insurance trust fund. Employees do not pay into that fund. The second involved contributions from employers and employees into the Paid Leave Oregon trust fund, which started making benefit payments in September.

Leahy said the new system also will ensure greater security.

“The department is balancing customer service aspects of providing timely benefits and protecting benefits by making sure someone else hasn't already used people's names to file a claim,” Leahy said.