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There are many ways to measure the level of seasonal work among those who experience job separations. This report uses the same method as that of the evaluation report titled "An Evaluation Overview of Seasonal Employment." The Canadian Out of Employment Panel (COEP) survey asks respondents to identify the type of employment that the Record of Employment (ROE) job would be classified under using the following question: Were you...

Were you...

1. A permanent employee
2. A temporary or term employee
3. A seasonal employee
4. On contract
5. Working through a temporary help agency
6. Other
7. Refused
8. Don't know
9. Not stated

It is important to note that there are different methods of measuring the degree of seasonal work such as identifying traditionally seasonal industries. Alternative definitions of seasonal work are likely to yield slightly different results.

Furthermore, for the purposes of this report the terms eligible and qualify are used interchangeably to describe individuals that have accumulated enough hours or weeks to qualify for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits according to the general eligibility requirements of that region. It should be noted that some of these individuals may technically be disqualified from collecting EI due to various reasons, such as returning to school or, in some cases, cheating. For simplicity, the paper also does not take into account the additional restrictions that new entrants/re-entrants have to meet in order to qualify. However, examining the broad sample should provide a reasonable perspective on the affects of EI changes and the attributes of seasonal workers that earn less than $12,000.

The main purpose of this section is to examine the characteristics of seasonal workers that earn less than $12,000. The first part investigates the composition of seasonal workers that earn less than $12,000. It looks at both the basic demographics and employment characteristics of seasonal workers that earn less than $12,000. The second part examines the chances of qualifying for EI benefits given certain demographics or employment characteristics.

A. The Composition of Seasonal Workers that Earn Less than $12,000

Table 1 examines the characteristics of seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 compared to other seasonal workers. The first row of Table 1 shows those proportions of all of the sampled workers who are seasonal workers. The rest of Table 1 examines the composition of seasonal workers who earn less than $12,000. From this table it can be seen that it is not uncommon for seasonal workers with job separations to have an annual income below $12,000. In fact, that is the case for approximately 58.4 percent (9.0/15.4) of all of the sampled seasonal workers.

Secondly, the table shows that the distributions of demographic and employment characteristics for the seasonal workers who earned less than $12,000 differ for those who did versus those who did not work enough to qualify for benefits. Those eligible for benefits on the basis of the quantity worked have demographic and employment attributes that are more similar to seasonal workers in general.

On the other hand, the 13.6 percent (2.1/15.4) of seasonal workers who earned less than $12,000 and who did not work enough to qualify for benefits have distributions of traits that are markedly different. Compared to seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 that worked enough to be eligible for benefits, this group has higher proportions of those who are young (48.4 percent versus 27.4 percent), those who have some post-secondary education (55.2 percent versus 35.7 percent), and those who are single without children (57.1 percent versus 41.3 percent). They are also considerably more likely to work in the Services industry (58.2 percent versus 47.2 percent), less likely to work in the Primary industries (11.1 percent versus 20.5 percent), and less likely to reside in the Atlantic Provinces (11.4 percent versus 27.8 percent). In addition, a lower proportion report that their ROE job separation was due to a layoff or slowdown (53.8 percent versus 74.9 percent), and more likely to report that it was due to quitting for the purpose of returning to school (17.0 percent versus 7.8 percent) or to take a new job (9.4 percent versus 2.4 percent). Clearly, many of these ineligible workers do not fit the usual regional or industrial or demographic profile of seasonal workers.

In order to understand the impact of EI reforms, it is especially important to examine the average number of hours worked per week and the length of employment for those who could versus those who could not qualify for benefits on the basis of how much they have worked. The transition to an hour-based system is likely to have unique impacts depending on these work characteristics.

First of all, it is clear that seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 that did not qualify for EI benefits generally worked fewer hours per week in their last job than those who did qualify. It is particularly interesting that the group of individuals who did not qualify for EI benefits were far more likely to work less than 35 hours per week. In fact, roughly 38.2 percent of those who did not qualify averaged less than 35 hours per week. In comparison, only 16.6 percent of all seasonal respondents averaged fewer than 35 hours per week. Figure 1 illustrates that individuals who did not qualify for EI benefits were far more likely to work under 35 hours per week than those who did qualify for EI benefits.

Another key factor determining whether a seasonal worker earning less than $12,000 will qualify for EI benefits is the total number of weeks worked. Many seasonal workers that do not qualify for EI benefits are not only restricted in the number of hours they work per week but are also constrained to a very brief employment period. In fact, approximately 59.3 percent of seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 that do not qualify for EI benefits worked 15 weeks or less in their last job. In contrast, only 24.3 percent of those who were eligible worked less than 15 weeks. Figure 2 shows that seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 that do not qualify for EI benefits are far more likely to work less than 15 weeks in their last ROE job.

These two important employment characteristics not only explain why certain individuals do not qualify for EI benefits but also provides insight as to why they are unfavourably affected by EI reforms. Seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 that do not qualify for EI benefits generally work fewer hours per week and fewer total weeks than those who do qualify. Moreover, the combination of these employment characteristics may magnify the impact of the move from a week-based system to an hour-based system. Table 2 provides a summary of these employment characteristics.

B. The Rate of Qualifying for EI Benefits among Seasonal Workers that Earn Less than $12,000

This section measures the percentage of individuals in a given category that qualify for EI benefits. Even though a large percentage of seasonal workers earned less than $12,000, the majority of these seasonal workers were eligible for EI benefits. However, examining the rate at which certain groups of individuals qualify for EI benefits helps to identify those least likely to qualify for EI benefits and possibly those most affected by the change to an hour-based system.

For the most part, Table 3 reiterates and supports the analysis of the previous section. First of all, it shows that seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 are less likely to be eligible for EI benefits than other seasonal workers. Overall, 76.4 percent of seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 and experiencing a job separation had worked enough to qualify for benefits compared to 82.1 percent of all seasonal workers. Certain categories of seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 were substantially less likely to qualify for benefits such as youth (64.7 percent), those with some post-secondary education (67.6 percent), those in Ontario (64.5 percent) or the Prairies (67.3 percent), those in the Public Services (68.4 percent), and unmarried workers (68.3 percent to 70.2 percent).

Indeed, the lowest eligibility rates occur for those who quit their last job to start another job or to return to school. In fact, only 45.3 percent of individuals who quit because they have a new job were eligible for benefits based on their previous work records, and just 59.6 percent of individuals returning to school could qualify for benefits on this basis. Of course, workers who quit their jobs to take new ones or return to school would not collect benefits, under either the old Unemployment Insurance (UI) or the new Employment Insurance (EI).

Also note that seasonal workers earning less than $12,000 that did not work in traditional seasonal industries or regions were less likely to qualify for benefits than those in the seasonal industries or those in the regions where seasonal work is more prevalent.

Table 4 shows that employment characteristics such as the length of the job and the average number of hours worked per week are considerably different between those who qualify for EI benefits and those who do not. It is obvious from the following table that the fewer hours that an individual works per week and the fewer weeks that an individual works per year, the less likely they are to qualify for EI benefits.