BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana's online jobs portal will be taken offline for a major upgrade.

The Helping Individuals Reach Employment portal will be taken offline at 5 p.m. today. The Louisiana Workforce Commission says the portal will remain down until Monday, Nov. 9, at the latest.

People claiming unemployment benefits for the week ending Saturday, Oct. 31, can avoid delays if they file by 5 p.m. on today.

Claims that are phoned in to the commission will be backdated when the HiRE system resumes operation.

Upgrades will include access for online appeals of unemployment insurance decisions and access to real-time claim updates.

During the upgrade, Louisiana employers will still have uninterrupted access to the online wage portal to pay unemployment insurance taxes.

More From 97.3 The Dawg