On March 21, 2025, the federal government announced a series of new temporary Employment Insurance (“EI”) measures to support workers whose jobs are impacted by the current economic uncertainty caused by the imposition of tariffs on Canadian goods. These measures are in addition to the US tariffs special measures the federal government has added to the Work-Sharing program, which we summarized in an earlier blog post.
These measures will be implemented through a pilot project and include:
- Waiving the EI waiting period so that workers will be able to receive benefits for the first week of unemployment, helping unemployed workers adjust more easily to a drop in income. All categories of EI claimant types are eligible for this measure. This measure will be in effect for six months.
- Suspending the rules for the treatment of severance, vacation and other monies on separation so that those monies do not need to be used up before claimants can start receiving EI benefits. This measure will allow claimants to receive EI benefits sooner after a layoff and will be in effect for six months.
- Adjusting regional unemployment rates used to determine access to and duration of EI benefits by artificially boosting them. This will reduce the hours claimants are required to work to qualify for regular benefits to no higher than 630 hours and increase the weeks of entitlement by up to four additional weeks so that workers can access EI more easily and for a longer period.
We will update this information once more details are shared.
