AI Analysis: Employment insurance beneficiaries (regular benefits) by province and territory, monthly, seasonally adjusted

Executive Summary

Canada's Employment Insurance regular beneficiaries have fluctuated dramatically over nearly 30 years (1997–2026), peaking at 1,653,980 recipients in May 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic before settling at 542,110 as of February 2026 — still elevated above pre-pandemic norms. Ontario and Quebec consistently lead all provinces in EI caseloads, while inter-provincial trends are highly correlated (r ≥ 0.90 for most pairs), reflecting the dominant role of national economic shocks in driving EI claims. The data is heavily right-skewed, with most records representing smaller regions or demographic sub-groups, while a handful of large-province and crisis-period values pull the distribution's tail sharply upward.

Key Findings

• As of February 2026, 542,110 Canadians are receiving regular EI benefits, remaining elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels despite a significant decline from the COVID-19 peak.
• The all-time high of 1,653,980 EI beneficiaries was recorded in May 2021 (Z-score of 5.60), representing nearly three times the historical Canada-wide average of 581,828 and marking the most extreme statistical outlier in the dataset.
• 13 months were flagged as statistical outliers (|Z-score| > 2), all concentrated between August 2020 and June 2021, capturing the full arc of pandemic-driven disruption to Canada's labour market.
• Alberta and Saskatchewan share the strongest inter-provincial correlation (r = 0.971), and 10 of the top regional pairs show correlations of 0.90 or higher, confirming that national economic cycles simultaneously drive EI claims across most of Canada.
• Ontario and Quebec lead all provinces historically, averaging approximately 61,062 and 62,499 EI regular beneficiaries per month respectively, consistent with their large labour forces.
• The dataset's mean beneficiary count (29,221) is more than six times its median (4,760), reflecting extreme right-skew driven by large-province totals and crisis-period spikes, with values ranging from 0 to 1,653,980.
• A notable low of 164,260 beneficiaries was recorded in August 2020 — the lowest in the dataset — likely caused by pandemic emergency programs such as CERB temporarily diverting claimants away from the regular EI system.