The backbone of Texas’ unemployment system that hundreds of thousands of people have used to file — or attempt to file — benefit claims relies on technology that’s three decades old.

The frustrating Texas Workforce Commission online system that continues to crash, lag or generally prevent Texans from filing for unemployment benefits is limited by its out-of-date technology, said TWC Director Ed Serna, during a call with the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

The workforce commission, which administers unemployment benefits, was negotiating a contract to replace the entire unemployment insurance system (a three-year project “at best,” Serna said), but that deal was put on hold by the coronavirus crisis. Now, the agency has to address an avalanche of jobless claims with a system that was built in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

While the agency has desperately tried to keep pace with the hundreds of thousands of people seeking to file claims, get them paid or ask about unemployment benefits by dramatically increasing its staff by the hundreds, adding phone lines and expanding server capacity, the outdated system is bogging them down.

More Information How to apply for unemployment assistance: You should apply for benefits as soon as you are unemployed or underemployed. Those who are self-employed, independent contractors and part-time workers will be eligible under the new stimulus package. Go to ui.texasworkforce.org or, if you do not have internet access, call 1-800-939-6631 during your assigned call time based on area code. Log on with an existing TWC User ID or create a new user ID. You will need: A Social Security number or Alien Registration Number Last employer’s business name and address First and last dates you worked for your last employer Number of hours worked and pay rate if you worked this week (including Sunday) Information about your normal wage When to call the Texas Workforce Commission: Area codes beginning with 9 should call Monday, Wednesday or Friday between 8:00 a.m. and noon. Area codes beginning with 3, 4, 5, or 6 should call Monday, Wednesday or Friday between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Area codes beginning with 7 or 8 should call Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday between 8:00 a.m. and noon. Area codes beginning with 2 should call Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. How to get free legal aid A toll-free legal assistance hot line for low-income families and individuals in Texas who are confronted with civil legal problems as a result of the pandemic is available by calling 800-504-7030 to be connected with legal service providers in their area.

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“That is the one limiting factor, the core piece of technology we are using is 1980s technology,” Serna said.

The agency has received more than 600,000 first-time unemployment claims since the beginning of the coronavirus-related shutdowns, an agency spokesperson said, though that data almost certainly fails to capture the total number of jobless Texans since many cannot get through the website or phone lines to submit claims. Phone calls to the Texas Workforce Commission about unemployment benefits have, at times, neared 2 million a day.

Out-of-date technology

Texas’ entire unemployment insurance system is run off of a mainframe computer, a large-capacity computer used for data processing before the advent of networked servers more prevalent in businesses today. While the TWC has made modifications since the late 1980s and early 1990s, the system has to be taken offline at night, Serna said, so that the files and data entered that day by workers in the call centers can be processed and reconciled with the other data entries in the system.

For that reason, it would be impossible for Texas to operate call centers 24/7, even if the agency had the staff resources to do so, since the system needs to take time off each night.

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Users of the state’s websites have run into frustrating technological issues, such as websites not loading or crashing during the unemployment benefit application process. Since it can’t replace the system as planned, the agency is pursuing other solutions to the backlogs such as expanding its server capacity to accommodate online filers, who account for about 75 percent of the applications.

Serna said the TWC has doubled its capacity from five servers to 10 servers and is looking to increase that to 20 servers in the coming weeks.

‘Larry’ the bot is feeling overwhelmed

Still, solutions can hardly keep up with the demand. The TWC launched a chat bot on its site last week, named “Larry” to answer common questions about the unemployment benefit application process. Ideally, “Larry” would be able to help users fix their problem instead of calling in to the TWC’s four overburdened call centers.

But “Larry” was quickly overwhelmed — users are getting a message from the bot that says, “Due to increased questions because of COVID-19, the TWC virtual assistant is experiencing exceptionally high volume.”

In the first five hours of operations, the bot received more than 37,000 questions, Serna said. “Larry” was originally designed to support 2,000 users at a time, but within the first hour of launching, more than 6,000 people at a time tried to use it.

Serna said the agency had to take it down and go back to the drawing board with its IT partners, Accenture and Amazon Web Services. The companies repaired and improved the bot, and now it should be “sustaining” the demand, Serna said, though some users are still reporting error messages.

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Lauren Golembiewski, the CEO and co-founder of Voxable, a company that builds conversational interfaces for companies, said that artificial intelligence bots can be very difficult to design if the programmer is unsure how many users might try to access it. Also, designing for the government presents its own challenges, she said, since the bot needs a lot of human input to understand complex words and processes related to unemployment insurance.

So, “Larry” is likely having trouble both understanding all the requests humans are throwing at it, and processing the information on its servers.

“For a situation like this, that is unprecedented, it makes sense that it would fail,” Golembiewski said. “When lots of people hit that application at the same time, it can take down the application.”

Expanding call centers

Serna said the agency has two contracts with call center firms to help ease the load. A third contract is in the works, he said.

As a result of the added call staff, the agency will expand its hours for the second time, this week changing the schedule to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. After Easter, Serna said, the agency will field calls 7 days a week.

To relieve the number of people calling at once, the TWC has also assigned call times based on the caller’s area code and added additional phone lines, which should result in fewer people getting busy signals when they call.

“We know Texans are our neighbors and need help,” Serna said. “We know we can help them if we can just get to them.”

erin.douglas@chron.com

Twitter.com/erinmdouglas23

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