Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Employment Insurance

The estimated number of Canadians (seasonally adjusted) receiving regular Employment Insurance benefits in September was 492,600, down 0.5% from August and 4.1% from a year ago.

The September decline was due to significant decreases in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. These drops offset large increases in the number of beneficiaries in August that were primarily due to a timing issue between the claimants waiting period and the reference week for these statistics.

Nationally, the number of beneficiaries has been dropping steadily since mid-2003.

Regular benefit payments in September totalled $713.3 million, while the number of people making initial and renewal claims was 227,790.

Note: Employment Insurance Statistics Program data are produced from an administrative data source and may, from time to time, be affected by changes to the Employment Insurance Act or administrative procedures. The number of beneficiaries for this month is a measure of all persons who received Employment Insurance benefits from the 10th to the 16th of the month. This coincides with the reference week of the Labour Force Survey. The regular benefit payments figure measures the total of all monies paid to individuals for the entire month.

Available on CANSIM: tables 276-0001 to 276-0006, 276-0009, 276-0011, 276-0015 and 276-0016.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 2604.

Data on Employment Insurance for October will be released on December 19.

For general information or to order data, contact Client Services (toll-free 1-866-873-8788; 613-951-4090; labour@statcan.ca). To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Gilles Groleau (613-951-4091), Labour Statistics Division.

Employment Insurance statistics
	September 2006	August 2006	September 2005	August to September 2006	September 2005 to September 2006
	Seasonally adjusted
				% change
Regular beneficiaries	492,600p	494,900r	513,630	-0.5	-4.1
Regular benefits paid ($ millions)	713.3p	699.1r	686.9	2.0	3.8
Initial and Renewal Claims received ('000)	227.8p	219.2r	229.0	3.9	-0.5
	Unadjusted
All beneficiaries ('000)1	600.6p	735.7p	653.4
Regular beneficiaries ('000)	358.3p	496.0p	376.0
Initial and Renewal Claims received ('000)	178.1	172.0	186.6
Payments ($ millions)	1,000.8	1,121.6	996.4
	Year-to-date (January to September)
			2006	2005	2005 to 2006
					% change
Claims received ('000)			1,889.5	1,996.1	-5.3
Payments ($ millions)			11,197.2	11,352.1	-1.4
r revised p preliminary 1. "All beneficiaries" includes all claimants receiving regular benefits (for example, as a result of layoff) or special benefits (for example, as a result of illness) and are representative of data for the Labour Force Survey reference week which is usually the week containing the 15th of the month.

Number of beneficiaries receiving regular benefits
	September 2006p	August to September 2006	September 2005 to September 2006
	Seasonally adjusted
		% change
Canada	492,600	-0.5	-4.1
Newfoundland and Labrador	39,600	1.2	2.7
Prince Edward Island	8,920	2.8	5.6
Nova Scotia	29,930	-1.9	1.7
New Brunswick	34,210	0.1	-1.5
Quebec	172,450	0.3	-2.4
Ontario	128,720	-2.2	-3.4
Manitoba	10,850	-4.1	-9.8
Saskatchewan	9,840	-8.4	-7.3
Alberta	18,410	-11.0	-12.4
British Columbia	39,690	-4.8	-17.6
Yukon	840	-1.2	-7.7
Northwest Territories	700	1.4	-10.3
Nunavut	370	2.8	-7.5
p preliminary Note: "All beneficiaries" includes all claimants receiving regular benefits (for example, as a result of layoff) or special benefits (for example, as a result of illness) and are representative of data for the Labour Force Survey reference week which is usually the week containing the 15th of the month.

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