Canadian Unemployment Declines in all Provinces in December 2021

According to Statistics Canada (StatsCan), the number of Canadians receiving regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits dropped by 56,000 (-8.1%) in December to 636,000. The number of regular EI beneficiaries fell in all provinces in December.

According to the Labor Force Survey (LFS), unemployment held steady at 1.2 million in December, including 1.1 million Canadians who were looking for work and 100,000 who had a connection to a job, either because they were on temporary layoff or had arrangements to begin a new job in the near future.

In December, the LFS showed that 293,000 Canadians had been unemployed continuously for 27 weeks or more. At the same time, 309,000 (46.4%) EI recipients received regular EI benefits in at least 7 of the last 12 months (not seasonally adjusted).

From December 2020 to December 2021, the number of regular EI recipients who last worked in accommodation and food services fell by 212,000 (-81.7%), the largest decline of any industry (not seasonally adjusted). Despite the decrease in the number of regular EI recipients, December LFS results showed that employment in this industry was 16.9% (-206,000) below its pre-pandemic February 2020 level.