Canada Employment Insurance Coverage Survey, 2024

Statistics Canada's 2024 survey provides a detailed portrait of unemployed and underemployed individuals and their access to Employment Insurance benefits. The survey was designed to identify groups with a low probability of receiving benefits, such as long-term unemployed, new labor market entrants, and those who voluntarily left their jobs. It also examines access to maternity and parental benefits, reasons for not receiving benefits, job search intensity, and income sources.

Use Cases

• Identify demographic groups with low EI benefit access based on survey-reported characteristics.
• Analyze reasons for not receiving or applying for benefits based on respondent-provided explanations.
• Study the sharing of parental benefits between spouses based on maternity/parental benefit data.
• Profile the characteristics and situations of individuals who have exhausted their EI benefits.
• Examine job search intensity and recall expectations among the unemployed.

Strengths

• Survey designed to provide precise measures for identifying specific at-risk groups.
• Includes detailed data on the last job held and reasons for non-receipt of benefits.
• Covers both regular Employment Insurance and maternity/parental benefits.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Statistics Canada

Collection Method

Survey

Time Range

2024

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-25 04:13:19; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Canada