Earnings Supplement Project (ESP) – Understanding Employment Insurance Claim Patterns: Final Report Of ESP
This report contains a series of lessons learned from the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation’s research on work and reliance on Employment Insurance (EI) benefits. These lessons lead to the general conclusion that workers’ frequent reliance on EI should not be viewed simply as a problem of workers becoming familiar with the program and learning how to benefit from its rules and provisions; rather, in many cases, it is a symptom of their difficulties in finding year-round employment due to inadequate skills, insufficient education or limited job opportunities in their region. The lessons also caution against concluding that non-reliance on EI necessarily reflects better labour market outcomes. For many workers, their non-reliance on EI can reflect the barriers they face in securing stable employment or their inability to qualify for benefits. The report concludes by examining the EI program itself to better understand its shortcomings and to identify priorities for future research.
Project Details
Published: March 2004
Capability: Experimentation
Policy Area: Income Security - Welfare and Employment
Population: EI Recipients - Low-skilled Workers
Other Related Projects
Enhancing Displaced Workers’ Literacy and Essential Skills
The Enhancing Displaced Workers Literacy and Essential Skills project is a collaborative project that is managed by Decoda Literacy Solutions and supported by the… Read More
Evaluation Methodology for the Pathway to Apprenticeship Completion in the Trades (PACT)
The PACT (Pathway to Apprenticeship Completion) is an important initiative that tests and gathers data on scalable solutions for apprenticeship retention, progression, and completion… Read More
