The number of Canadians receiving regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits was little changed in January (+0.3%; +1,600) and stood at 468,000. From January 2023 to January 2024, the total number of regular EI beneficiaries increased by 71,000 (+18.0%), partly offsetting the year-over-year decline of 271,000 (-40.6%) from January 2022 to January 2023.
Data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) show that the unemployment rate declined 0.1 percentage points to 5.7% in January 2024, the first decline since December 2022. The unemployment rate had been on an upward trend through most of 2023, rising from 5.1% in April to 5.8% in December.
In general, variations in the number of EI beneficiaries can reflect changes in the circumstances of different groups, including those becoming beneficiaries, those going back to work, those exhausting their regular benefits, and those no longer receiving benefits for other reasons.
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