Number of people on EI little changed in March: StatsCan
Toronto Star May 24, 2012
Why is there such a major discrepancy between the March 2012 Employment Insurance (EI) recipient report and the March 2012 Labour Force Survey (LFS) report? Other than the fact the March LFS jobs boom was a complete statistical artifact, the short answer is there’s little connection between the number of EI recipients and the number of unemployed. Despite the unadjusted number of unemployed and the number of EI claims rising in March 2012, suggesting more Canadians were in need of assistance, the number of EI recipients declined that month.
|
|
Feb-2012 |
Mar-2012 |
Net |
|
Unemployed (R4, seasonally-adjusted) |
1,386,200 |
1,356,200 |
-30,000 |
|
Unemployed (R4, unadjusted) |
1,423,600 |
1,432,800 |
+9,200 |
|
EI claims received (initial and renewal) |
181,200 |
201,990 |
+20,790 |
|
EI recipients (Regular Benefits, unadjusted) |
687,570 |
684,310 |
-3,260 |
Actually, there is one rather unsettling link between the notoriously unreliable LFS jobs numbers and the EI program: The former is used to calculate how many hours individuals need to have worked to qualify for (and how many weeks they would be entitled to receive benefits from) the latter, based on the economic region in which they live. Section 17.(1) of the Employment Insurance Regulations dictates the use of the seasonally-adjusted monthly rates to determine the number of qualifying hours and weeks of benefits.
Jobless stats: Extremely influential, notoriously unreliable
Heather Scoffield, Globe and Mail January 9, 2009
But delving into the report for information about regions, individual professions, cities, or certain parts of the population can be perilous… Statscan acknowledges that there is a large margin of error that suggests no one should read too much into monthly movements in employment.
No one should read too much into the monthly LFS figures because of their large margin of error, but apparently they’re good enough for the federal government to use to deny thousands of unemployed Canadians EI benefits. March 2012 was one of those ‘don’t read too much into it’ months, due to seasonal adjustment. That a statistical artefact that month likely contributed to thousands of Canadians not receiving EI benefits they otherwise may have been entitled to is troubling. And that’s without taking into consideration the just announced changes to the EI program.