In March, 470,000 Canadians received regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, little changed (+0.1%; +400) from February. After trending higher from February to December 2023 (+78,000; +19.8%), the number of regular (EI) recipients has remained relatively steady in recent months.
On a year-over-year basis, the number of regular EI beneficiaries was up by 75,000 (+18.9%) in March 2024.
Data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) show that the unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points to 6.1% in March, bringing the cumulative increase since March 2023 to 1.0 percentage points.
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.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).