OTTAWA — November saw the lowest number of employment insurance claimants in 25 years, Statistics Canada said Friday.
The group of 396,000 recipients was the smallest since comparable data was released in 1997, except for the summer of 2020, when the Canada Emergency Response Benefit program was in effect.
The unemployment rate was 5.1% in November.
According to the federal agency, the number of people receiving regular employment insurance benefits in November fell in eight provinces.
The agency says fewer men and women in all age groups received regular EI benefits that month.
Statistics Canada’s Labor Force Survey found that the number of middle-aged people who left a job involuntarily in the past 12 months was down 3.2% in November from the same month in 2021, and down 18.6% compared to November 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This decrease in the number of people leaving their jobs involuntarily could contribute to the historically low levels of the number of people receiving regular employment insurance benefits in November 2022,” said Statistics Canada.
