Shawn de Raaf
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 84
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Placed within the context of a discussion of the principles underlying the present-day EI program, this research leads the authors to identify policy options that are worth exploring further in order to make EI more responsive to the realities of today's labour market, while at the same time addressing potential disincentives and inequities in the current system. [...] This study shows that the relationship between EI and the decision to migrate is complex and depends on individuals' degree of attachment to the labour market, since only those who work few weeks per year were found to be more likely to move following the tightening of the EI program in the mid-1990s. [...] This overhaul took the form of the Employment Insurance (EI) program introduced in 1996 to bring the program up-to-pace with changes in the economy.6 Along with a requirement to reduce program costs, program designers endeavoured "to ensure that the system was responsive to the realities of today's labour market and to remove disincentives and inequities in the system" (HRDC, 1998b, p. i). [...] The 1996 reform represented the culmination of a series of modifications in the mid- 1990s that reduced the generosity of the program. [...] Another important research element was the series of in-depth evaluation studies sponsored by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) in the late 1990s, which provided important lessons in the ongoing refinement of the program.7 The subject matter of these studies was wide-ranging, from the impact of EI's switch to an hours-based system to the implementation of income supplements for.
