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As mentioned earlier, under the Employment Insurance (EI) system, the formula for determining the weekly benefit rate creates a disincentive for individuals to accept small weeks of work during the Rate Calculation Period (RCP). In particular, seasonal workers with combinations of regular work-weeks (weekly earnings greater than $150) and small weeks of work could be greatly affected. The Small Weeks Pilot Project has been designed to encourage workers in regions of high unemployment (above 10 percent) to accept small weeks of work without affecting their benefit rates.

To be eligible to participate in the Project, the individual must reside in one of the 31 selected economic regions. It also requires that the individual's total number of insured weeks worked during the RCP meets or exceeds the minimum divisor in his/her region. The benefit period for the individual commences no earlier than November 15, 1998, or else the rules for the old (1997-1998) Small Weeks Adjustment Projects apply. In addition, the claimant must have at least one regular week and one small week worked.

To calculate the EI benefit level under this Project, an “excluding” method is used.⁵ Under this method, EI benefit levels are not reduced because of small weeks earnings. If an individual's number of regular weeks worked is less than the regional minimum divisor, the small weeks worked with the highest earnings are used to bring the number of weeks up to meet the regional minimum divisor. The remaining small weeks are excluded for benefit calculation purposes. However, all hours worked are counted to determine eligibility and duration of benefits.

Footnotes

5

See footnote 2. Since both methods yield the same level of benefit rate with the same criteria for determining eligibility and duration of benefits, only the “excluding” method is used in the current Pilot Project. The main benefit in using the “excluding” method is its ease in calculating the benefit rate.