RDC News: Request for Proposals, Employment Insurance Program Status Vector /Data Pilot Project

To increase the accessibility of administrative data from the Employment Insurance program, Statistics Canada, together with Employment and Social Development Canada, is conducting a pilot project. Researchers with approved projects will have access to the Status Vector (EISV) data through the Research Data Centres (RDCs). In addition to providing data access, this pilot will enable Statistics Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada to determine appropriate vetting rules for, and develop collective knowledge of, the EISV data. It will also allow Statistics Canada to test and evaluate an accelerated process of data provisioning and access. Proposals must be submitted by Friday, September 29.

Information to aid in proposal development:

The Employment Insurance (EI) program provides temporary income support to unemployed workers while they look for employment or upgrade their skills. It also provides special benefits to workers who take time off from work in relation to specific life events (e.g., illness; pregnancy; and caring for a newborn, newly-adopted or critically-ill child or a family member who is seriously ill with a significant risk of death). Workers receive EI benefits only if they have paid premiums in the past year and meet qualifying and entitlement conditions. Self-employed workers may participate in EI and receive special benefits. For more information, please refer to the most recent EI Monitoring and Assessment Report.
The EISV data consist of individual-level, weekly records covering the period of 1997 to 2016. For each individual, there is a hierarchy of files, including one “header” file and multiple “trailer” files. The header file contains policy-relevant information for each claim submitted by every EI claimant. The trailer files contain supplementary information on a weekly basis for those claims. There are three trailer files, capturing relevant weekly information on:

1. Disqualification or disentitlement;
2. Benefits (i.e., information reported by an EI claimant on biweekly reports to Service Canada, and the outcome of these reports, regarding the payment of benefits, the reason for non-payment of benefits, and receipt of income from other sources, such as part-time work or training allowance);
3. Earnings (i.e., detailed work activity and earnings, as reported by an EI claimant to Service Canada on a biweekly basis);

The EISV data set stores both header and trailer files as a single text file and researchers will have access to all header and trailer files.