THE EXTENDED EI BENEFITS PILOT PROJECT
The Extended EI Benefits pilot project will increase Employment Insurance (EI) income support by providing access to five additional weeks of benefits to EI claimants, up to a maximum of 45 weeks of benefits.
The Extended EI Benefits pilot will run for 18 months. It will replace a previous pilot project which also provided five additional weeks of benefits to EI claimants.
The pilot will continue to test whether providing additional weeks would:
- help address the annual income gap faced by seasonal workers whose weeks of work and EI benefits are not sufficient to provide income throughout the year, and;
- have any adverse labour market effects on other EI claimants.
The Extended EI Benefits pilot project will continue to provide up to five additional weeks of EI benefits in 21 of the 24 EI economic regions originally included in pilot project no.6 (the Increased Weeks of EI Benefits Pilot Project).
This is an interim measure and the Government’s priority continues to be to help Canadians participate in the labour market.
The 21 EI economic regions included in the Extended EI Benefits pilot project are:
Northern Ontario
Sudbury
Central Quebec
Chicoutimi—Jonquière
Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine
Lower Saint Lawrence and North Shore
North Western Quebec
Trois-Rivières
Eastern Nova Scotia
Western Nova Scotia
Madawaska—Charlotte
Restigouche—Albert
Northern Manitoba
Northern British Columbia
Prince Edward Island
Northern Saskatchewan
Newfoundland/Labrador
St. John’s
Yukon
Northwest Territories
Nunavut
The pilot will not continue in three of the 24 EI regions where economic conditions have strengthened significantly over the last two years, and unemployment rates are currently below 8 per cent. The EI regions that will not continue in the pilot are:
- Southern Coastal BC, where the unemployment rate is now 5.8%
- Southern Interior BC, where the unemployment rate is now 6.5%; and
- Northern Alberta, where the unemployment rate is now 7.9%.
Program costs will be reduced by almost $15 million a year through these changes.