Employment insurance is a lot like any other insurance: it’s a kind of financial protection in case a certain type of risk occurs (in this case, the loss of a job). A person may qualify to receive weekly payments from employment insurance for a certain amount of time if they stopped working and are no longer earning an income.

Like any kind of insurance, all the people who are protected by employment insurance must pay premiums. Usually, people do not need to sign up for employment insurance; their employer will make those arrangements and premiums will automatically be deducted from their pay checks. The employer also pays premiums.

There are different kinds of benefits available from employment insurance, for example, parental benefits for parents from other provinces or compassionate care benefits. This Infosheet will focus on regular benefits. In general, regular benefits are paid to people who lose their job through no fault of their own.

You must fulfill the following conditions to qualify for regular benefits from employment insurance:

1. You must have lost your job through no fault of your own; generally, this means that you were not fired nor did you choose to leave your job. In certain cases, you may qualify for employment insurance even if you chose to leave your job. (See the question “Can I qualify to receive employment insurance benefits even though I left my job?”)
   
   
2. You must be out of work, and you must not have been paid for at least 7 consecutive days.
   
   
3. You must have worked in a job that is considered "insurable employment". (See the question “What is insurable employment?”)
   
   
4. You must have worked the minimum number of hours in insurable employment during your qualifying period. (See the question, “How many hours of work do I need to qualify for employment insurance?")
   
   
5. You must be able to work and be available for work, but unable to find a suitable new job.

You can only qualify to get employment insurance benefits if you can show that, given your situation, leaving your job was the only reasonable option available to you. There can be many situations in which leaving a job is the only reasonable option available to a person. Here are some examples:

• a person was being sexually harassed at work.
  
  
• his working conditions were dangerous.
  
  
• his employer put tremendous pressure on him to quit.
  
  
• he had to accompany his spouse to another area because the spouse found work there.

To qualify for employment insurance, you must have worked in a job that is considered insurable employment. Generally, you work in insurable employment if you work under the authority of an employer in Canada i.e. the employer controls your wages, hours, and tasks.

Some jobs are not insurable employment. For example, most self-employed people or independent contractors do not work in insurable employment because they don’t work under the authority of an employer.

Contact your local Service Canada office if you think that your job is insurable employment and no employment insurance premiums are being taken from your paycheck. Click here to find you local Service Canada office.

The minimum number of hours of insurable work that you need to qualify for employment insurance depends on the unemployment rate in your area. The higher the unemployment rate, the lower the required number of hours. Usually, you need between 420-700 hours during your qualifying period.

Generally, your qualifying period is the 52 weeks (around 1 year) before your benefit period starts. The benefit period, as its name indicates, is the period of time during which you can receive employment insurance benefits. To find out more about the benefit period, see the question “When and how much will I be paid from employment insurance?” But your qualifying period could be shorter if you already received employment insurance in the last year. Or your qualifying period could be extended, for example, if you couldn’t work for part of the year because you were pregnant or sick.

The minimum number of hours you need to work is higher if, in the past, you violated certain obligations you had when receiving employment insurance benefits (for example, you left for a vacation in Mexico while receiving employment insurance benefits, while the law says that you must be available for work in order to be entitled to receive employment insurance).

You can add together all the hours you have worked at different insurable jobs across Canada during the qualifying period. For example, because unemployment in the area where Mark lives is at 10%, Mark needs to have worked 560 hours in the last 52 weeks to qualify for employment insurance. In the past year, Mark worked several part-time jobs at a high school, the hardware store, and in local parks. Now he cannot find any work. Mark will add together the hours he worked for these different employers to see if he worked at least 560 hours.

In general, yes. If you are new to the workforce or if you re-entered the workforce, you must have worked a minimum of 840 to 910 hours (depending on the rate of unemployment in your region) in your qualifying period in order to qualify for employment insurance.

You are usually considered a new or re-entered worker if, in the 52 weeks (around 1 year) before your qualifying period, you had less than 490 hours during which you:

• worked in insurable employment; and/or
  
  
• received or could have received employment insurance benefits; and/or
  
  
• were involved in certain types of activities relating to a job search, or received government benefits or other sums of money that had to do with the end or interruption of your job.
  
  For example, weeks where you were in lock-out, in preventative withdrawal, received severance pay, attended a training program recommended by the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, etc.

But even if you have less than 490 hours in the 52 weeks before your qualifying period, you are not considered a new or re-entered worker if you’ve received benefits from the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan in the 4 years before the 52 weeks that come before your qualifying period.

In order to receive employment insurance benefits, you must apply for them and show that you qualify to receive benefits. You can apply on-line or you can apply in-person at your local Service Canada office (click here to find your local Service Canada office).

You must provide all the information required by Service Canada, including information relating to your job and why you stopped working. Check with Service Canada to find out exactly which documents you will need to apply for employment insurance benefits; these documents include your social insurance number.

It is a good idea to apply for employment insurance benefits as soon as you qualify to receive them. A delay in applying may cause you to lose part or all of the benefits you could receive.

If you qualify to receive employment insurance benefits, a benefit period is established for you. The benefit period is a period of time during which you can receive employment insurance benefits. You can receive benefits for each week of unemployment that falls in the benefit period. In general, the benefit period is a maximum of 52 weeks. Each person’s situation is different so the length of the benefit period can be different for different people. See the question “For how many weeks can I get benefits from employment insurance?”

In general, your benefits period starts on the later of:

• the Sunday of the week in which you stopped working; or
  
  
• the Sunday of the week in which you apply for employment insurance benefits.

Once your benefit period starts, you must wait through a 2-week waiting period before you will be eligible for receiving benefit payments from employment insurance. You will not receive any benefits during this 2-week waiting period. It’s a little like the deductible for other types of insurance.

The amount of weekly benefits you receive will depend on how much you were paid before becoming unemployed. Generally, you will receive 55% of your average weekly salary calculated during the last 26 weeks of your qualifying period. There is a maximum cap for weekly benefits over which you cannot get any more money, no mater how much you made before stopping work. In 2009, this cap was $447 per week. Check with Service Canada or Human Resources and Social Development to find out the amount of your benefit. Click here to find your local Service Canada office.

People from low-income families with children may receive an additional amount of money added to their employment insurance benefit.

You must report any earnings you receive after you have stopped working. Often, money you receive will be deducted from your employment insurance benefits.

You can get benefits for each week of unemployment during your benefit period, up to a maximum number of weeks, beyond which you cannot receive benefits from employment insurance.

Generally, this maximum number of weeks can be from 19 weeks to 50 weeks, depending on how many hours you worked in insurable employment during your qualifying period and the rate of unemployment in your region.

The more you worked in insurable employment during your qualifying period, or the higher the unemployment rates in your region, the longer you are likely to receive benefits.

A pilot program allows you to spread the payment of these benefits over a period of up to two years when you enrol in a training program at the suggestion of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.

Yes. At all times while collecting employment insurance, you must be able to show that:

• you are able and available to work but cannot find a suitable job; or
  
• you are unable to work due to illness, injury, quarantine, or jury duty.

Amongst other things, this obligation could mean that you cannot travel or go back to school because then, you wouldn’t be available for work. You are not entitled to receive employment insurance benefits for any working day on which you fail to be available. Usually, you are also not entitled to receive any employment insurance benefits for a period of time that you are outside Canada. The law makes certain exceptions when you really must go abroad, for example, to receive medical treatment that isn’t readily available where you live, or to attend the funeral of a family member.

As well, in general, you must (except if you have a good reason not to do so):

• apply for a suitable job that becomes vacant after you find out that it is vacant;
  
• accept a suitable job if it is offered to you;
  
• take advantage of any opportunities to get a suitable job;
  
• follow any instructions you get from the Canada Employment Insurance Commission to find a suitable job;
  
• attend any interview that the Canada Employment Insurance Commission asks you to attend in order to help you find a suitable job or to see if you need any job training;
  
• attend and complete any course or training program that the Commission asks you to attend and that you agree to attend.

You may be disqualified from receiving employment insurance benefits for a certain amount of time if you don’t fulfill these obligations.

You may need to submit reports to Service Canada showing that you are fulfilling your obligations.

It is a good idea to check with the people handling your employment insurance file to find out about any other specific obligations you may have.

While you may only receive a warning, you may also receive a penalty or lose the right to receive employment insurance benefits for a period of time, if you knowingly lie or if you don’t fulfill your obligations (for example, if you don’t report income you are earning through a part-time job while receiving employment insurance benefits).

If you fail to fulfill your obligations, you may have to follow different, harder rules the next time you apply for employment insurance benefits. For example, you may need to work a higher number of minimum hours in your qualifying period if you lied while trying to collect employment insurance in the past.

If you collected employment insurance benefits, and Human Resources and Social Development Canada later determines that you were not entitled to them, you may have to pay them back.

You may also be charged with a criminal offence if you violate your obligations or lie. If you are found guilty, you may be fined and/or imprisoned for 6 months or less.

Yes. Employment insurance benefits are taxed because they are considered to be income you earn. Taxes have to be paid on your benefits, and as with any job, you could owe money back at tax time depending on how much you make in a year. You will receive a T4E (tax receipt) for any year in which you received employment insurance benefits; you will need to file this with your tax return.

While you must continue to look for work that provides a suitable income, you may work for a few hours a week and still collect employment insurance. Depending on how much money you get from employment insurance, you can keep between $50 and 110$ in wages earned while working part-time. Some or all of the rest of the wages you earn may be subtracted from your weekly employment insurance benefit.

While collecting employment insurance, you must report any money you receive from a part-time job, even if the amount will not be deducted from your weekly employment insurance benefits.

Yes. Your employment insurance benefits are a part of your income and they can, therefore, be used to pay child support.

You can access a lot of the information about your file electronically on the Service Canada website.

Generally, you can access any of your personal information held by Human Resources and Social Development Canada if the information:

• is relevant to making your application for employment insurance benefits; or
  
• concerns the employment insurance benefits you are receiving; or
  
• is relevant to any other issue that affects you with respect to the employment insurance program.

You can write to Human Resources and Social Development Canada to request the information.

Your personal information is privileged, which means that it is generally confidential. However, your personal information can be shared with the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, Human Resources and Social Development Canada or with another person or organization in order to carry out the employment insurance program. Occasionally, if there is a reason to do so, your personal information could also be shared with other organizations including federal government departments, provincial governments, or foreign governments. Therefore, Customs Canada, Revenu Quebec, Aide financière aux études (organization that provides financial assistance to students), etc. are all organizations that can exchange information with the Canadian Employment Insurance Commission.

Your information will not be made available to other persons except under very rare circumstances where public interest requires it. Your information may also be used by the government for statistical purposes.