Filing for unemployment benefits will be paused May 30 due to conversion to new system Updated May 05, 2021; It will cause the system to go offline for a week and a day, temporarily preventing residents from filing cliams. But earlier estimates called for the system to be offline for two weeks. Officials from the state Department of Labor & Industry offered this revised timeline during a Wednesday meeting of the advisory panel appointed by the Legislature to monitor the computer conversion project. The labor department is moving from a mainframe system that is nearly 50 years old to one that will be accessible on mobile and tablet devices.