Employment Insurance Monitoring and Assessment Report for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2017 and ending March 31, 2018
Chapter 2: Impact and effectiveness of Employment Insurance benefits

In this chapter

• Chapter 2: Impact and effectiveness of Employment Insurance benefits (Part I of the Employment Insurance Act)
  • 1. Employment Insurance benefits overview
  • 2. Employment Insurance regular benefits
  • 3. Employment Insurance support for apprentices
  • 4. Employment Insurance fishing benefits
  • 5. Employment Insurance work-sharing benefits
  • 6. Employment Insurance special benefits
  • 7. Employment Insurance financial information

Introduction

This chapter of the Employment Insurance Monitoring and Assessment Report assesses income support provided by Employment Insurance (EI) Part 1 benefits: regular benefits, fishing benefits, work-sharing benefits and special benefits. This chapter includes several key indicators, such as the number of new claims established, total amount paid, level of benefits, maximum duration and actual duration of benefits as well as the exhaustion of benefits. Throughout the chapter, key EI program provisions and recent changes made to the EI program are discussed. Indicators related to level of claims and level of benefits are presented for claims established within the fiscal year in which at least one dollar in EI benefits was paid. Meanwhile, indicators like maximum and actual duration are based on claims completed^{Footnote 1} during the fiscal year in which at least one dollar was paid in EI benefits. Indicators related to amount of EI benefits paid are presented on a cash basis, which means the expenses are accounted for during the fiscal year in which they are paid. More information on the definitions of the indicators presented throughout this chapter can be found in Annex 2.1 of this report.

This chapter relies on several sources of information to provide a comprehensive analysis of the EI program. EI administrative data, generally based on a 10% sample, underpins the majority of the analysis in this chapter. Some sections of this chapter also make use of tax data provided by the Canada Revenue Agency related to T4 tax slips with employment income or T1 returns. Statistics Canadas’ Employment Insurance Coverage Survey and Labour Force Survey provide the basis for deeper analysis of coverage, eligibility and accessibility of EI benefits for unemployed people. Throughout the chapter, data for the FY1718 is compared with data from previous years and, in some instances, long-term trends are discussed.

Annex 2 of the report presents additional statistical information on benefits analyzed in this chapter and Annex 7 provides an overview of major changes to the EI program between April 1996 and December 2018.