CANADA - HRDC's data on EI recipients distorted

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HRDC's data on EI recipients distorted Department giving benefits to many more than believed Eric Beauchesne The Ottawa Citizen

Scandal-ridden Human Resources Development Canada has for years been under-counting the number of unemployed receiving jobless benefits.

The error, revealed by Statistics Canada, means that thousands more have been getting benefits each month than believed.

By under-counting the number of beneficiaries, HRDC has also been handing additional ammunition to critics of the government's EI reforms, who have complained of the sharp drop in the proportion of jobless covered by the tightened-up program.

The proportion of unemployed getting benefits reportedly fell below 40 per cent last year from what was more than 80 per cent in 1989, according to HRDC's flawed count.

It's not known yet exactly how many beneficiaries were missed but an official at Statistics Canada suspects it was somewhat more than three per cent, which would work out to roughly 10,000 a month.

The error, which apparently resulted from the way in which the EI data had been collected since the start of 1997, was discovered earlier this year by the beleaguered department.

The revelation comes in the wake of controversy over HRDC's mismanagement of job-creation grants and charges that some of the funds were used for political purposes by Prime Minister Jean Chretien's Liberal government.

As a result of the error, HRDC and Statistics Canada, which used the count in its monthly report on the EI system, are having to "conduct an historical revision to correct the data series dating back to January 1997."

"We've got our work cut out for us when we get all the revised tapes," said Robert Keay with Statistics Canada. So, it will be "quite a while ... unfortunately" before the revisions are complete, he said.

Statistics Canada is being "right up front" about the problem so users of its numbers are not misled. "We don't necessarily know how it happened," Mr. Keay said, adding that Statistics Canada had been using the data in good faith. "You receive this information and they tell you it's right and you pretty much have to go on that and then all of a sudden it's wrong."

However, Steve Sun, an official with HRDC, said Statistics Canada has "overreacted," and that the undercount of the numbers receiving EI benefits was no more than two per cent, or about 8,000 a month.

He also said the error didn't distort figures on the amount of money paid out in benefits.

Mr. Sun added that Statistics Canada was cautioned last year that there may be a problem but that it was too busy dealing with Y2K problems to pay attention to that warning.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/000826/4651710.html

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), August 26, 2000


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