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Summary
- About 1.5 million Canadians accessed regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits in the month of January 2021, reported Statistics Canada.
- This number records a month-over-month (MoM) jump of 11.2 per cent, or more than 149,000 people.
- The latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) shows that some 1.9 million Canadians were out of a job in January
About 1.5 million Canadians accessed regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits in the month of January 2021, reported Statistics Canada. This number records a month-over-month (MoM) jump of 11.2 per cent, or more than 149,000 people.
The latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) shows that some 1.9 million Canadians were out of a job in January, while 1.5 million others were seeking employment and some 400,000 were either on furlough or were about to start a new job.
The Statistics Canada report points that the latest data for employment insurance was collected in the week between January 10 and 16, when COVID-related restrictions that impact businesses were still implemented in many regions.
©Kalkine Group 2020
How Change of Rules Impacted EI Beneficiaries Statistics?
In September 2020, the Canadian government made some changes to the EI program on a temporary basis to increase its eligibility. One of these tweaks was reducing the number of required insured hours.
These changes have helped expand the pool of EI recipients over the last few months. In January 2021, the proportion of EI recipients gaining eligibility under the new rules has grown by 2.3 percentage points in Newfoundland and Labrador, while in Nova Scotia it was up by 0.7 percentage points.
In Quebec, however, the proportion shrank by 0.6 percentage points.
Which Regions Noted An Difference In EI Beneficiaries Statistics?
While Ontario saw the pool of regular EI beneficiaries grow by 82,000 people, or 17.2 per cent MoM in January, Quebec recorded a jump of 75,000 new members, or 25 per cent MoM, reported Statistics Canada.
This rise in EI beneficiaries points towards the increase in job losses that these regions saw in January following reimplementation of lockdown measures near the end of December 2020.
British Columbia saw the pool of EI beneficiaries shrink by 10,000, or 6.7 per cent MoM, in January, while the number was down by 3,000, or 6.4 per cent, in Nova Scotia.
What Do the Latest EI Numbers Tell Us About Employment Status in Canada?
The number of people accessing EI benefits climbed across all industries on a year-over-year (YoY) level in January. But those hailing from the accommodation and food services industry saw the largest spike with 728.5 per cent YoY, closely followed by people from the retail trade industry (438.8 per cent YoY).
In terms of age, 15 per cent of the pool of regular EI recipients in January consisted of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24, which was a 9.1 per cent YoY jump.
The surge of women EI recipients, at 4.1 percentage points, was more than double than that of young men, which was up 1.8 percentage points.
The LFS results from January also found that in terms of employment, young women were much below the pre-pandemic levels than other demographic groups.
