Next month the New York State Department of Labor will be modernizing its 50-year-old unemployment insurance system.
The major overhaul will keep the system offline for about nine days, beginning Monday, Nov. 2.
WAMC’s David Guistina spoke earlier this week with New York State Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon about the upcoming transition.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: this conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Guistina: It's a 50-year-old unemployment system. We see that so much when it comes to infrastructure needs to be affixed, upgraded, and made better, and that's exactly what's happening in the Department of Labor.
Reardon: Correct. This system was built in the late 70s, and it was originally coded in something called COBOL, which nobody even knows anymore.
We have a system that still has one key punch that they use for one operation. For those who don't know a key punch, it's pre-floppy disk, and we still require businesses to communicate with us by fax. So we are ready for the 21st century, and that's what this new upgrade is going to do for our customers.
We are really excited — Nov. 2, which is a Monday, at 5 p.m., The upgrade will begin, and — first piece of information for anybody who's listening and who's already collecting unemployment insurance benefits, please go in and certify for that week before 5 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 2nd. If you do that, your check will be processed as usual, and you'll get that check as you usually do, probably deposited in your bank by the end of the week, so you won't miss that.
From Nov. 2, for nine-to-12 days, the system will be unavailable to the public, and will only be read-only for us here in the agency because we the first three days of that transition will be processing all the claims that came in before 5 p.m. on Monday, and then we will begin migration.
We have literally 5 billion different business records that need to be transferred from the old system into the new system. So we'll be doing the migration. We'll be checking along the way to make sure it's going well. And at the end, we will again test, pressure test, and then open up for business. So you will be notified towards the end of that next week. Go in and certify. And if you're a new customer, if you've lost your job in between during the transition period, you go in and open a new claim. One thing for people who are in the system already: you do not need to create a new username and password. Use the same entry that you've always used for unemployment insurance. There will be one place in the certification that's different. Currently, most people are on a requirement for work search. They have to do at least three work search efforts for that week to certify that they can get their benefit. Right in the new system, you'll have a place to list those three efforts. It could be a job fair, submitting your resume, going to an interview, and they'll be right there for you to do your certification. It's really modern. I'm very excited.
Guistina: Well, that's really the part of it, making it easier, more quick. But of course, there's this delay, and you know, this is, I guess, really part of why you want to get the information out. You don't want people to be affected, their payments.
Reardon: Correct. We know that that delay for that one week, it's nine-to-12 days, but essentially a week and a half. I realize that that's going to cause anxiety for some people.
I, as an actor, was on unemployment. I completely understand the situation, but it is a small amount of time. People need to understand you will be paid everything that you are owed from unemployment. You will not miss a payment. It will just simply be delayed. So that first check, when you go back into the new system and recertify there, that first check will probably reflect two weeks instead of one week.
Guistina: But this is the only way to do it, right? I mean, I can just hear people out there saying, 'Well, why do we have to delay it. Why wasn't it done over over all those years? Why is it happening now?'
Reardon: It is such a large system, and this is a system that is built specifically for the state of New York. You cannot buy these systems off the shelf. We have the second largest unemployment insurance program in the country, and this is the largest transition of any unemployment services system ever in the United States, so it's a behemoth, but it's very, very, very much needed, and I'm very excited to introduce our new system to our customers.
Guistina: Tell folks who are listening out there some of the other innovation here, because I know it has an advantage for businesses as well.
Reardon: Very much so. So businesses will have 24/7 access currently in the old system. They literally have to wait for us to be at our desks in order to communicate with the department. They can't do anything off hours. Right. In the new system, 24/7 access. They'll be if they have a third-party that handles all of their payroll and stuff like a third-party paymaster. They can assign that person to handle the the day-to-day instead of having to have the principal in the office do it. And it gives them real-time access to their accounts. It'll be easier for them to handle questions that we send to them.
When you become unemployed, we send a notice to the employer to certify from them that this person actually left their job and under what circumstances. It used to be often done by fax. Now we simply send a query through the system to the employer. Employer responds through the system to us. Any documentation that they need, they just upload it into their system, and it comes to us electronically. Much cleaner, no faxes, and it's much much faster. It'll be much more efficient. So it really will improve communication for everybody.
Guistina: Remind folks out there where they need to go if they're thinking, 'Oh, wait, I forgot what the date, what this.' Where can they get the information?
Reardon: dol.ny.gov/unemployment, and if you are collecting unemployment every week that you certify between now and Nov. 2.
There will be a video on the computer or screen that will allow you to understand what's going on before you can go in and finish your your certification. One other thing that's great: this new upgrade will allow our customers to do all of their business with us on their smartphones, which they never could do before. You know, we all depend on our smartphones now. You can use it for UI.
