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How Do TAGS/HRDC Program staff Measure Adjustment?

TAGS/HRDC managers required information about adjustment success of clients for both accountability and operational reasons. From an accountability perspective TAGS/HRDC accepted the number of clients adjusted out of the Atlantic groundfish industry as the single success indicator for the program and required information to track this. From an operational perspective, local TAGS/HRDC counsellors needed to know how individual TAGS clients were faring with regard to adjustment in order to effectively allocate resources. As a result, TAGS/HRDC developed two independent adjustment measures: one for accountability and one for operations.

The accountability measure adopted following the February 1996 Operational Review was: ...adjusted clients are defined as those clients who receive in TAGS benefits less than 25% of 12 times their TAGS/HRDC rate in the 12 week reference period.⁶²

In essence, for the TAGS/HRDC Program estimate of adjustment, TAGS clients were considered as adjusted when they were receiving less than 25% of their income in TAGS benefits during a twelve week reference period. This measure of adjustment was periodically calculated for different 12 week periods.

TAGS/HRDC officials assessed the sensitivity of this measure to longer reference periods (14 and 20 weeks) and found little difference. They have observed, however, that the measure is very volatile depending on the actual reference period, that is which 12 week period is used. This is because of the seasonal economies in the main TAGS areas.

For example, estimates of adjustment for reference periods which include November tend to be lower as a consequence of the fisheries UI/EI regulations.⁶³ Using HRDC's 12-week measure, the estimated level of adjustment varies according to the reference date:

• as of December 30th, 1995 = 26% or 10,307 TAGS clients adjusted;
• as of December 28th, 1996, = 30% or 12,050 TAGS clients adjusted;
• as of February 15th, 1997, = 38% or 14,911 TAGS clients adjusted.

Both the December estimates include November in the reference period and might therefore be considered low by program officials.

Comparing the Evaluation Estimates of Total Adjustment to HRDC Estimates

The estimates by the Evaluation Study do not differ substantially from those produced by the TAGS/HRDC program itself.

The definition of adjustment by the Evaluation Team, and the program definition of adjustment, both revolve around the level and source of income. The following table summarizes the difference between the evaluation estimate and the TAGS/HRDC Program definition of adjustment.

Both measures have merit. From a program perspective, a major concern was the total amount required for income support and the resulting drain on active programming resources. Hence it is reasonable that the program definition should focus on replacing TAGS/HRDC pay with other sources. That they accept EI as a valid source of income reflects their awareness of the limitation of labor market conditions in the affected areas, and taking 75% of TAGS as acceptable reflects a recognition that this very large industrial closure will have an unavoidable impact on earnings.

This Evaluation Study addresses the TAGS/HRDC goal to adjust workers out of the groundfish industry, and specifically examines the success of clients in replacing groundfish as a source of income or as a means of qualifying for income support. For this purpose it is reasonable to require that this replacement occurs without increased reliance on income support. Like the program definition, transfer income is permitted in recognition of limited labor market possibilities, and the income level is discounted to reflect the impact of the closure.

Footnotes

62	TAGS Management Information: Measuring Adjustment; no date, p.1
63	Because of the way the summer and winter fishing periods are defined by UI/EI, fishers generally did not receive UI in November. The rules changed slightly as of January 1997.