Canadian Unemployment Minimally Changed in March

Statistics Canada (StatCan) is reporting that in March, 388,000 Canadians received regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, which is little changed from February’s totals. The number of regular EI recipients in March was the lowest on record (outside of the period of March to September 2020 when the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit was in place). The number of Canadians collecting EI benefits fell by 141,000, or 26.7%, year-over-year.

The Labor Force Survey is reporting that the unemployment rate held steady at a near-record low of 5.0% in March. The proportion of the unemployed who had been out of work for 27 weeks or more—the long-term unemployed—dropped from 20.3% in March 2022 to 16.0% in March 2023.

StatsCan notes that in general, variations in the number of 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.