Oregon Department of Employment’s domain registration expires

PORTLAND, Oregon – The Oregon Department of Employment’s website for posting economic data went down over the weekend, apparently because the state failed to renew its domain name registration.

The loss of Oregon’s qualityinfo.org page did not affect unemployment claims, which are managed on a separate website, The Oregonian / OregonLive reported.

After an investigation by the newspaper, the department said it had renewed the domain name and indicated that the site would be back on Monday evening.

But the blackout is another embarrassing technology gap for the department, which has repeatedly stumbled over the past year amid a flood of jobless claims sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Qualityinfo.org hosts the employment department’s monthly announcement of the state’s unemployment rate, information on regional economic conditions, and analysis by department economists. Business owners, lawmakers, and others use the data to make decisions about strategy and policy.

“QualityInfo.org is an important resource for researchers, policy makers and the general public,” the employment department said in a statement. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Technical problems are endemic to the employment service, which relies on an outdated computer system from the 1990s to process and pay unemployment claims. This system is the main reason Oregon has been among the slowest in the country to pay unemployment claims during the pandemic.

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The state signed a contract with Colorado-based FAST Enterprises last month to upgrade the system, which officials say will go live in 2024.

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