The federal government is extending three temporary employment insurance (EI) measures aimed at workers who have lost jobs because of U.S. tariffs.
In a release on Friday, the government said an EI pilot project launched in March 2025 would extend beyond April 2026, to October 2026.
The EI project waives the usual one-week EI waiting period; doesn’t require claimants to first exhaust employer payments such as severance, as is typically required; and provides 20 additional weeks of regular benefits for long-tenured workers, who may require more time to find work.
Recently, changes introduced in March 2025 to the work-sharing program were extended to March 31, 2027, to allow more businesses and employees to participate in the program.
In February, the unemployment rate increased 0.2 percentage points to 6.7%.
The unemployment rate was virtually unchanged from 12 months earlier when it was 6.6%, Statistics Canada said, and remained below the recent high of 7.1% reached in August and September 2025.
Among the 1.5 million people who were unemployed in February, 22.8% were in long-term unemployment, meaning they had been continuously searching for work for 27 weeks or more.