Employment Security Commission unveils improved unemployment assistance portal

There is now an improved system to help Oklahomans who find themselves out of work.

The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission says its portal is now more user-friendly and secure.

Joining the News 9 team to share more about how the new system will help ease stress for Oklahomans is OESC CEO Trae Rahill.

Q: For those unfamiliar with the unemployment benefits process, can you explain how that works? 

A: If someone is seeking unemployment, it's usually after they've been discharged from work. Not everyone meets eligibility criteria to receive benefits, but they go through an application process, and if they are determined eligible for benefits, that's determined inside our agency using an adjudication process, then they will have to file with an initial claim. Once we're able to verify that the separating employer is in fact putting them in a position where they would be eligible for unemployment benefits, then they receive those benefits through a weekly filing process. We get an initial claim, and then we reach out to the employers to make sure we have all the right data and information, and then after the determination is made, we put people through work searches and try to get them back to work as fast as possible. During that process, they're able to draw benefits. 

Q: What's new in this portal? What are the new features? What are you trying to let people know? 

A: We're super excited about the claimant portal. It is actually the largest technology release in agency history, so we're super excited, and it's pretty much gone off without a hitch. Our team is been working for about a year and a half, developing and designing this tool so that when it launched, it would be a smooth operation for folks. We have been really excited to see it kind of pilot-tested and soft-launched over the last few months in our offices, and it went hard-launched last week, which enabled us to take down a legacy system for the agency that has been around for decades. It's an exciting step forward because it's user-friendly. You can use it on a tablet or a cell phone. It's layered with a lot more fraud detection and prevention software. There's a little bit of AI functionality in there, just so that if someone's going through the claim-filing process, it reacts to the answers that are being given and adjusts to the questions that it asks. It's more user-friendly, and we're also getting better information on who's going through the system so that we understand what's happening with their claim. It's made us faster; it used to be about an hour and a half process for people to file a claim, this can happen between 20 and 30 minutes. I think so far, in just the few months it's been used, I think we've actually saved like 100,000 hours for people going through the process and staff just from who's been using it thus far.

Q: Where can people find the portal? 

A: They can come to our website, oklahoma.gov/workforce. There are a few different ways that you can get to either the OESC site or the Oklahoma Works site, which is the partnership with other agencies that we staff our offices across the state, the Oklahoma Works Offices, so they can kind of get to us in any way. Call, come into one of the offices, go online, and we'll be able to link them and give them access to that new system. 

Q: How is the unemployment rate? How is our workforce right now? 

A: Our unemployment rate right now is at 3.1%, it is lower than it was this time last year, so that's good. We usually track where we are relative to ourselves last year, also to the national average. We've been below the national average now for the last several years, and so that's always a good thing. Low unemployment rate is good, but it also makes things a little tougher on employers looking for staff, because when the unemployment rate is low, people typically have more options. [That] puts pressure on wages and things like that, because people might leave for another job opportunity if there are more jobs than people looking. It's good, but it can also be challenging for businesses as well, but the labor force overall is very strong right now. We have more people in the labor force than ever before in state history, so it's growing, and that's good for the economy. We just try to play the best role we can at matching them well and making sure that employers are getting what they really need.