In March, the number of seasonally adjusted employment insurance (EI) recipients in Canada edged down 0.6 per cent following an increase the month prior.
Outside lows observed during the pandemic – when households were supported by the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit in place from March to September 2020 – this was among the lowest EI levels on record since 1997.
Meanwhile, B.C. results continued to remain low and unchanged in regular EI beneficiaries (down 40 people or down 0.1 per cent) to a total of 39,830 people in March. B.C.’s labour market also saw little change in March with a negligible and insignificant decline in seasonally adjusted employment, according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS).
Patterns differed by age cohort for EI statistics. Following the large proportional decline in February, the number of core-aged EI recipients inched up by 0.3 per cent in March. The cohort aged 55 and up also had a 2.3-per-cent increase in EI beneficiaries during the same month. The decline in EI recipients was concentrated in the 15-to-24 age group, which reported a 10.6 per cent decline in numbers. The number of male EI recipients was down by 4.3 per cent, while female EI beneficiaries surged by 6.2 per cent in March.
B.C.’s EI counts were 22.8 per cent lower than the same month in 2021, without seasonal adjustment. Regionally, all economic regions reported lower EI counts on an unadjusted year-over-year basis. Among all economic regions, the Lower Mainland/Southwest region led the EI decline with a drop of 72.9 per cent, while the North Coast/Nechako region reported the lowest drop at 47.4 per cent. Among census metropolitan areas, Kelowna (down 7.5 per cent) reported one of the largest proportional decreases in regular EI beneficiaries.
The B.C. unemployment rate dropped below five per cent again to 4.5 per cent, largely because of a labour force contraction of 0.6 per cent in March. The provincial labour figures remained solid despite softness in some of the details. EI statistics in B.C. may remain steady and stay in line with labour market performance in the upcoming period despite an expected softening in economic activity.
Bryan Yu is chief economist at Central 1.
