Question Period Note: EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE PROCESSING AND CALL CENTRE

Employment Insurance (EI) service delivery delays

The EI Program, including its Call Centre, remains at the forefront of the Government of Canada’s service to Canadians and response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite having received more than 3.51 million EI applications in 2021-22, Service Canada surpassed its processing service standards.

As we move into a post-pandemic era, yearly peak periods will continue to impact some Canadians who will wait longer before their claim is processed or to reach an officer in the Call Centre.

We are working closely with claimants who have experienced some delays due to high demand periods. Claimants will not lose any benefits as a result of any delays.

Service Canada continues to put measures in place to ensure that Canadians have timely access to the EI benefits when they need it most.

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) is the largest federal service delivery organization in Canada, delivering benefits and services to support Canadians at all stages of their lives. Since the beginning of the pandemic, ESDC has been tirelessly working to efficiently manage the processing of EI applications and call volumes and has issued more than $34.4 billion in EI benefits in fiscal year 2021-2022.

EI Processing Speed of Payment

Service Canada’s key client service performance indicator for timeliness of EI claims processing is Speed of Payment (SOP). The target is to issue a payment or notification of non-payment to claimants within 28 days of filing their application for benefits, 80% of the time. Service Canada surpassed this target with a SOP result of 85.4% in fiscal year (FY) 2021-22.

For FY 2022-23 (as of September 3, 2022), Service Canada has received a total of 1,171,007 new applications. This is within 1% of the forecast for this FY (3.04 million). Currently, Service Canada has 143,032 new applications pending. Of these, 60,590 (42%) are 29 days or older.

EI Call Centres

In 2021-2022, officers answered 7.2 million enquiries. As we move into a post pandemic phase the EI Call Centre has re-aligned capacity given call demand is forecasted to decrease, as a result of a reduced claim intake forecast. An average staffing of 2,625 officers remains from a pandemic high of over 3,000, which is still more than double the number of agents prior to the pandemic. The Department continuously works to align call handling capacity to the call volume.

For FY 2022-23 (as of September 2, 2022), the EI Call Centre answered over 2.6 million calls. Call volumes are forecasted at 6.0 million to 6.5 million calls to be answered by EI Call Centre officers by the end of FY 2022-23.

Quebec and Atlantic Regions

As of August 31, 2022, processing times for the Atlantic region are better (lower) than the national average

The Quebec Region experienced longer than usual processing times this past winter as a result of the increased applications received during its winter peak period due to omicron. The processing times are now in line with national average.

Service Canada continues to put measures in place to provide effective and efficient service that meets the needs of clients and ensures that Canadians continue to have timely access to the EI benefits to which they are entitled, when they need it most.