Men who rely on EI benefits on the rise in Canada

The number of Canadians receiving employment insurance benefits is rising in Canada, and the numbers suggest men are driving the increase.

Canada saw nearly 33,000 more people reliant on employment insurance (EI) benefits from April to August of this year, with women seeing steady or declining rates for the month of August, and men seeing increases across the board.

“The number of beneficiaries is increasing in most occupations, but the sharpest increase has been in manufacturing,” says Vincent Ferrao, a labour market analysyt with StatsCan. “Men tend to be more employed in manufacturing than women are.”

Adam Davies, a professor at the University of Guelph, says in an increasingly polarized world, stats like those could be used to spread a narrative that men are being further disadvantaged simply because of their gender.

“Certain segments of male populations feel despair, certain groups of men might have these feelings of disenfranchisement,” says Davies. “There’s certainly a risk for that to be politicized in a way that fuels right-wing political momentum, which can be very dangerous to racialized communities, LGBTQ communities.

“It can fuel xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment as well.”

Davies says as marginalized people see gains in the workplace, it’s important to understand it isn’t the result of another group being targeted.

“Because other groups are gaining in terms of representation and awareness, it doesn’t have to put groups who aren’t part of those groups, that aren’t making these gains at risk, or at threat in any way,” he says.

Not helping relieve that feeling of despair among some men, according to StatsCan, a sluggish job market is not only adding more people dependent on EI, but also causing a greater pool of them to fight for a smaller share of jobs.

But human resources professionals say it could be a good time for self-reflection and an assessment of job skills.

“Really taking a look at their skills, what skills did they gain?” says Wendy Giuffre, president and founder of Wendy Ellen Inc. “Often times it’s not just the skills of the trade. There’s lots of other skills.”

As an example, Giuffre says someone who has worked in the trades for years would have often gained project management or leadership skills.

“It’s really lining those up and seeing what they are good at, and trying to figure out how those skills transfer into some other role,” she says.

Canada’s unemployment rate was 6.5 per cent in September, including 5.7 per cent for men over 25 and 5 per cent for women over 25.