AI Analysis: Employment insurance coverage, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's Table 14100006 tracks Employment Insurance coverage across three categories over 80 years (1946–2026), with the broadest measure — 'Persons covered by employment insurance' — reaching 18,170 thousand as of February 2026 and peaking at 21,256 thousand in May 2025. The dataset reveals dramatic long-term growth in EI coverage alongside sharp cyclical spikes in claimants during major economic downturns, all visible in unadjusted monthly data spanning 1,605 records. Despite a 30-fold range in some categories, no formal statistical outliers were flagged, indicating that even extreme values reflect genuine structural and economic shifts rather than data errors.

Key Findings

• The dataset spans 80 years (January 1946 to February 2026) with 1,605 records across three EI coverage categories, making it one of the longest-running labour market datasets available from Statistics Canada.
• 'Persons covered by employment insurance' is the dominant and most current measure, averaging 10,027 thousand persons per month and peaking at 21,256 thousand in May 2025, compared to just 2,540 thousand at its historical low.
• 'Claimants for unemployment insurance benefits' averaged 427 thousand per month during its recorded period (1946–1976), but reached a peak of 1,221 thousand — a 30× increase over the category minimum of 39 thousand recorded in August 1947.
• 'Beneficiaries (estimated)', the narrowest measure, averaged 261.8 thousand persons with a peak of 807 thousand, and its right-skewed distribution (mean well above median of 192.5 thousand) reflects periodic spikes during economic downturns.
• No formal statistical outliers were detected using a 2.5× IQR method, confirming that even the most extreme values — such as the COVID-19 period spikes in 2020 and the 2008–09 recession — represent genuine economic events rather than data anomalies.
• The overall dataset is heavily right-skewed, with a mean of 5,904 thousand far exceeding the median of 4,003 thousand, driven by the scale difference between the large 'Persons covered' category and the two smaller historical claimant categories.
• The latest reading of 18,170 thousand covered persons in February 2026 represents a modest decline from the May 2025 peak of 21,256 thousand, suggesting a potential softening in EI enrollment after a period of historically high coverage.