The Progressive Economics Forum

A recent article in The New York Times illustrates this point with the story of an unemployed administrative assistant in her 50s, who has not been able to find a job for over two years after being laid off. As the journalist explains, her difficulties are likely not the result of age discrimination, the weak [...]

This morning, Statistics Canada released Employment Insurance (EI) figures for February. These figures show slightly more recipients nationally, but somewhat fewer recipients among provinces. Statistics Canada confirms that this apparent discrepancy reflects the fact that each province is seasonally adjusted separately from the national total. When seasonal adjustment is tipping the balance between an increase [...]

The number of Canadians receiving regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits dropped by 47,700 in January, the largest monthly decline in years. As usual, the key unanswered question is whether these workers are no longer on EI because they found jobs or simply ran out of benefits. The Labour Force Survey indicates that employment rose by [...]

The number of Canadians receiving Employment Insurance (EI) benefits plummeted in December. The drop of 40,100 was the largest monthly decrease in years. One would anticipate some decline in the number of EI recipients as the job market begins to recover. But the magnitude of December’s decline suggests that, in addition to those former recipients who [...]

The content in the EI report by myself and Sylvain Schetagne which was released by the CCPA yesterday won’t be new to readers of this blog – an updating of trends in unemployment and EI use to show that tens of thousands of workers who lost their jobs early in the Great Recession are and [...]

The number of Canadians receiving regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits declined by 7,300 in November. As always, we do not know whether these workers found jobs or simply ran out of benefits. The Labour Force Survey indicated higher employment and slightly lower unemployment that month, which supports a positive interpretation. Following these declines in recipients [...]

There is more evidence in today’s release of EI data that the decline in the number of EI beneficiaries is being driven by exhaustion of benefits rather than by a fall in unemployment. Between September and October, the number of unemployed (seasonally adjusted) rose by 37,700 but the number of regular EI beneficaries (also seasonally [...]

Today’s Employment Insurance (EI) release indicates that 4,000 fewer Canadians received benefits in October. The key unanswered question is whether these workers found jobs or simply ran out of benefits. To make matters more ambiguous, the two main employment measures point in opposite directions. The Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours for October, also released [...]

The following is an extract from the CLC publication “Recession Watch” available at http://www.canadianlabour.ca/sites/default/files/Recession-Watch-03-Fall-2009-EN.html Before the recession, more than one in four (27.9%) of claimants exhausted their benefits (29.9% of women and 26.5% of men) and more than one in three (34.3%) older workers exhausted their benefits. Currently, claimants are eligible for between 19 weeks [...]

(The following post is a slightly edited version of the CLC Submission to the House of Commons Human Resources Committee.) Bill C-56 extending EI special benefits to the self-employed looks likely to pass very soon with all party support. It is an important step forward in term sof extending needed benefits to a growing category [...]

This blog flagged, and Worthwhile Canadian Initiative pursued, a striking discrepancy in July’s employment data. The Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH) indicated that employers paid 74,000 more employees. Conversely, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) had indicated that employers paid 79,000 fewer employees in July. This difference of 153,000 exceeds 1% of Canada’s workforce. [...]

Today’s Employment Insurance (EI) figures indicate that, in August, 23,000 more Canadians filed EI claims but 19,000 fewer received EI benefits. The most optimistic possibility is that all of the workers who stopped receiving benefits got jobs. Indeed, the Labour Force Survey indicates that total employment rose by 27,000 in August. However, that is not [...]

UPDATE (October 20): The transcript of the hearing described below is now available. . . . Late this afternoon, I had the pleasure of serving on a Parliamentary panel composed entirely of members of the United Steelworkers union.  My co-panellists before the Human Resources committee were Ken Georgetti, CLC President, and Rosalie Washington, a laid-off [...]

UPDATE (September 29): Quoted by The Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, and Canadian Press . . . A recent inquiry for a NOW Magazine article has inspired me to use the July Employment Insurance (EI) figures, released this morning, to examine how this program serves Canadian cities. However, I begin with a national [...]

Some pundits have blasted the NDP for voting with the Conservatives in exchange for “a bone,” “crumbs” or “a peanut” on Employment Insurance (EI).  Others have convincingly countered that forcing an election right now would not advance EI reform or other progressive causes. Nevertheless, the decision to temporarily support the government deserves further analysis in [...]

Janice MacKinnon’s op-ed on Employment Insurance (EI) in Monday’s National Post read almost as if it had been written before the economic crisis. There was no mention of mass layoffs or rising unemployment, let alone proposals to enhance EI in response to these trends. Instead, she sees the biggest problem with EI as being the [...]

The latest changes to EI to be introduced by the Conservatives do almost nothing for the shock troops of the labour market, those who were first felled when the recession hit last year. Bill C-50 will pass – whether or not it is fast-tracked today or “well-considered” in committee depends on how the procedural tactics [...]

With their backs once again to the wall, the Conservatives today announced that they will, at long last, propose additional measures to help the unemployed, something almost everyone inside and outside Parliament has been asking them to do for the better part of a year. They will extend employment insurance benefits by another 5 to [...]

UPDATE (August 26): Quoted by Canadian Press, Canwest, The Toronto Star and Hamilton Spectator It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… It would be welcome news if the number of Canadians receiving Employment Insurance (EI) benefits increased because of a proactive policy decision to expand this program to combat the recession. [...]

I note from a CP wire story  that Ottawa U economist David Gray is weighing in behind Harper’s argument that lowering eligibility for EI would be a “disaster”, and I suspect strongly he will not be the last to do so.      http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1135526.html The received wisdom among mainstream neo liberal economists is that a “generous” [...]

The worst news in today’s Employment Insurance (EI) figures is that new benefit claims hit a record high. Rising numbers of unemployed workers and hence EI beneficiaries are an unsurprising result of a deteriorating labour market. However, the increase the number of new EI claims suggests that the pace of deterioration is worsening rather than easing. [...]

The Spring, 2009 issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy contains a useful and interesting piece which convincingly rebuts the often cited and assumed link between Unemployment Insurance “generosity” and higher unemployment due to alleged disincentives to work. You’ll have to pay for the full article, I’m afraid, but here is the abstract. Unemployment [...]

Believe it or not, in 2011, the “new” EI Fund will begin life $10.5 Billion in the hole, setting the stage for a big job-destroying hike in premiums, even though there is a $57 Billion surplus in the “old” EI Account. In the 2009 Budget (p 106) , the federal government announced that it would [...]

Today’s Employment Insurance (EI) figures confirm that fewer than half of unemployed Canadians received EI benefits in April. Although 18,600 more Canadians received benefits in April than in March, this was the smallest increase in six months. The relatively modest increase in EI beneficiaries corresponds to a relatively small increase in official unemployment during April, [...]

Political debate and media reporting on today’s economic “Report to Canadians” have emphasized one of the first tables in the document, in which the government claims to have “committed” 80% of budgeted stimulus spending (page 14 of 230). Equally interesting, but perhaps less noticed, are the two “Fiscal Outlook” tables near the end of the [...]

I recently had the pleasure of serving with Stephen Gordon on a panel about economics and blogging. Over at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, he has been leading a one-man crusade against reducing the eligibility requirement for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits to 360 hours. His stated goal is to provide better protection for unemployed workers and counter-cyclical [...]

There was a problem before the recession in terms of EI claimants exhausting their benefits before finding a new job, and it will soon get much worse. In 2006-07, before the recession, the national unemployment rate averaged just over 6%. Nonetheless, there were over 1.3 million new regular EI claims filed over the year, reflecting [...]

If the federal deficit for 2009-10 soars by more than $16 Billion from $34 Billion to over $50 Billion, it won’t be mainly because of a jump in EI expenditures as Finance Minister Flaherty seems to have suggested. True, the 2009 Budget EI projections now look badly wrong. The forecast increase in total EI spending [...]

March’s large increase in Employment Insurance (EI) recipients was no surprise given mass layoffs and February’s record-high number of EI benefit claims. But when compared to Labour Force Survey figures on March unemployment, today’s figures provide a sobering reminder that well below half of unemployed Canadians receive EI benefits. Employment Insurance Coverage, March 2009   [...]

The new EI Monitoring and Assessment Report provides some useful information about access before the crisis. http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/employment/ei/reports/eimar_2008/index.shtml In 2007, about one in five (17.7%)  of  EI premium payers who were laid-off  did not qualify for access to EI due specifically to a lack of enough hours of insured work, including 66% of (mainly women) part-time [...]