More Canadians are receiving Employment Insurance benefits, as unemployment continues to grow across the country.
The number of Canadians receiving Employment Insurance benefits has risen over 10% since the same time last year, according to new data released by Statistics Canada.
According to new data released on Thursday, 474,000 Canadians are receiving Employment Insurance benefits, rising 6,000, or 1.3%, since the previous month, marking the second consecutive monthly increase.
Since June 2023, regular EI beneficiaries have increased by 44,720 to 473,980 recipients, a rise of 10.4%. Comparatively, Canada had 497,130 EI beneficiaries in June 2022.
“In general, variations in the number of EI beneficiaries can reflect changes in 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,” reads the report.
Unemployment reached 6.4% in June 2024 across the country. This saw a similar rise from the year prior, growing 0.9% from 5.5% in June 2023, which had risen 0.5% from 5.0% in June 2022.
Statistics Canada attributed the rise in unemployment to “more people search(ing) for work, while overall employment held steady.” However, the more people searching for work were new immigrants to the country.
The stagnant availability of jobs drove the rise in unemployment. At the same time, Canada’s population grew by nearly 100,000 between May and June 2024.
While EI recipients rose by 1.3% between May and June 2024, not all provinces saw an increase.
Alberta, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia were the only three provinces to see a decrease in recipients, at 1.7%, 1.4%, and 0.2% decreases, respectively.
The biggest increase in EI recipients between May and June 2024 was found in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, and Ontario, at 2.7%, 2.5%, and 1.7%, respectively.
The number of EI recipients falling in Alberta marked the fifth consecutive monthly decline.
Ontario saw the biggest increase by a large margin in EI recipients year-over-year, rising 25.1%.
Recipients of Employment Insurance also varied depending on the industry of their prior employment.
Canadians who last worked in natural and applied sciences have seen a 26.3% rise in accessing EI over the last year. Following that are those who worked in manufacturing and utilities, as well as legislative and senior management, which saw increases of 21.8% and 20.8%, respectively.
Conversely, those who last worked in natural resources and agriculture, art, culture, recreation and sport both saw annual decreases in EI beneficiaries, at 7.2% and 1.2%, respectively.
The number of EI beneficiaries varied in terms of age and gender demographics.
The increase was led by men aged 25 to 54 years old, which saw a rise of 12.8% in EI beneficiaries year-over-year, followed by women in the same age group, which saw a rise of 10.5%.
The number of beneficiaries measured were those in Canada who received regular EI benefits between June 9 and 15, 2024.
Despite the recent rise, EI beneficiaries have fallen greatly from its peak in Jan. 2022 of 671,390, the furthest the data goes back.