NWT/NUNAVUT
Those working in the territories who find themselves out of a job will soon have to work more hours to qualify for unemployment benefits.

Employment Minister Jason Kenney speaks at a press conference at in the Great Hall in the NWT Legislature on Feb. 21. Kenney announced changes to how it calculates EI benefits for the country's three territories last week. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo

During a recent tour of the North, Employment Minister Jason Kenney announced that the arbitrary unemployment rate of 25 per cent will no longer be used to calculate unemployment benefits in the territories.

“Until now, the system was based on something we developed in the early 1970s that no longer reflects reality,” said Kenney, during a recent press conference in Yellowknife. “It's time to end the fiction of 25 per cent unemployment.”

Since the 1970s, the three territories have had their unemployment rates fixed at 25 per cent for the purposes of this calculation. However, as of January 2014, actual unemployment rates were 6.3 per cent in Yukon, 8.0 percent in the Northwest Territories and 13.1 percent in Nunavut.

As of Oct. 12, actual unemployment rates will be used to determine employment insurance benefits. Kenney said the changes would raise the number of days people would have to work in order to qualify “based on unemployment in the region where you live,” he said.

“Obviously, (someone in) an area like Fort McMurray with two per cent unemployment has a much easier time find a job than someone in let's say rural Quebec with 25 per cent unemployment.”

The number of hours that someone has to work in order to qualify for employment insurance under the current system is 420.

The number of hours someone must work in order to qualify for employment insurance increases incrementally as unemployment goes above 13.1 per cent.

As of December, there were 440 people were on employment insurance in Nunavut.

In order to make the evaluation of employment insurance more equitable, the federal government will be dividing each territory into two regions to calculate unemployment – one for the capital and one for the rest of each territory.

He added that unemployment for each region would be calculated on both a rolling 3 month basis and a 12 month basis, with the highest average unemployment figure of the two being used to calculate EI rates.

Kenney said this was being done to reflect the fact that unemployment was so low in the three capital cities in comparison to the rest of the territory.

He added that the plan would help address the shortage of skilled labourers which employers are always complaining about.

“The principle is this: if you in an area with a very strong labour market we want to encourage you to actively seek work, not to depend on EI,” he said.