HONOLULU -- The state on Tuesday announced that people filing for weekly unemployment benefits can now make claims online.

Before this, claimants had to file by telephone or in person at the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations offices.

"The Internet system is convenient, easy to use and gives claimants the opportunity to review their entries before submitting their weekly claim certification," DLIR Director Darwin Ching said in a written statement. "Ultimately, this provides a more streamlined experience for the people we are trying to serve."

DLIR Unemployment Insurance Division Web Site

Weekly benefits filings take up about 90 percent of all filing activity, officials said. Every week, the Unemployment Insurance Division receives about 36,000 weekly claims by telephone, DLIR said. The Internet system can more than 2.5 times the capacity of the current telephone filing system, they said.