After a year of frustration over long waits for checks, jammed phone lines and confusing online filing procedures, Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor & Industry is promising a much quicker and easier unemployment compensation claims filing system beginning next month.

The new system, scheduled to launch June 8, is based on what the department said is modern software to replace an “obsolete 40-year-old mainframe legacy system.”

Pandemic-related shutdowns starting last spring stressed the unemployment compensation system like never before, as claims shot to record levels and swamped a bare-bones staff forced to work remotely.

One year later, complaints about the system have continued as the department has struggled to hire and train new employees on a complex system and absorb new jobless benefits programs on the fly.

The new system arrives after a series of bungled efforts to replace the system began in 2006.

The new system will handle claims and appeals for unemployment compensation, pandemic emergency unemployment compensation, extended benefits, shared work or short-time compensation and trade readjustment allowances.

It also will allow users to check the status of a payment, use a dashboard to receive messages from state workers and manage certain options on their account.

The system had been close to being introduced last year when the pandemic hit, said acting Labor and Industry Secretary Jennifer Berrier, but the department put it on hold to manage the surge in unemployment claims as businesses shut down and people hunkered down at home.

To transfer data to the new system, users will be unable to file unemployment claims for two weeks in June, delaying payments to people filing for traditional unemployment benefits, Berrier said.

The system had been close to being introduced last year when the pandemic hit, Berrier said, but the department put it on hold to manage the surge in unemployment claims as businesses shut down and people hunkered down at home.

With claims on a downward trend this spring, department officials decided they could go forward with introducing the system, Berrier said.

The state Department of Labor & Industry is working to give claimants notice so that they can prepare in advance. Back pay will be issued when the system is back online.

We understand that antiquated system is long overdue. But state officials should have implemented a plan so those counting on their unemployment check to buy food and pay bills wouldn’t be left in the lurch during the transition period.

— JGG