Employment Insurance (EI) is available to you if you have lost your job through no fault of your own. If you are an apprentice and are required to go back to school, EI benefits are also available to you. Please continue reading below for more information.
- On my own: If you are in an apprenticeship, and have been referred by your province or territory to attend full-time technical training (sometimes referred to as block-release training), you may be eligible to receive Employment Insurance (EI) while unemployed and attending your course (Read More).
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- With a group sponsor: If you are with SOY, we understand that most apprentices may not have the financial means to go back to school. Though we work with you to budget and prepare for the loss of income while you’re back in school, we are also able to work with your employer to provide you with a “top-up” (only SOY apprentices who qualify for EI, and still have an employer that is registered to SOY’s Supplemental Unemployment Benefit (SUB) plan, will qualify for this additional benefit).
How long does employment insurance last?
- In order to qualify for EI, you must be attending trade school as “block learning” – this means you are released for your education, or “in-class” portion of your training, in blocks of eight-11 weeks (an electrical apprentice’s block learning looks like level one for eight weeks, level two for 10 weeks, and level three for 11 weeks).
Employment insurance will last for the duration in your “in-school” portion of your training.
If you are attending trade school for one day or evening per week, you will still be working for most of the week and therefore; will not qualify for EI. Other funding opportunities may exist, such as scholarships or bursaries.
How much does employment insurance provide?
- Service Canada calculates total insurable earnings for the required number of best weeks (the weeks that you earned the most money, including insurable tips and commissions) based on the information you provide and/or your Record(s) of Employment.
- Service Canada will then determine the divisor (number of best weeks) that corresponds to your regional rate of unemployment.
- Service Canada will divide your total insurable earnings for your best weeks by your required number of best weeks.
- Service Canada then multiplies the result by 55 per cent to obtain the amount of your weekly benefits.
For more information on the calculation of your benefits, please visit this webpage.
How to apply for apprentice employment insurance?
- Apply for EI benefits up to seven days before your last day of work at this link.
- You must make sure you provide all Records of Employment (ROEs) issued to you over the past 52 weeks.
- If your employer submits ROEs electronically to Service Canada, you do not need to provide paper copies.
- If you are leaving work for the sole purpose of attending full-time technical training for which you are referred by your province or territory, your apprentice employer should use Code J in block 16 as the reason for issuing the ROE.
Visit this website for more information on how to apply for EI as an apprentice.
Scholarships, grants, and bursaries:
- In addition to applying for employment insurance, with a little digging, many organizations have provided a variety of scholarships and funds in order to help you enter the trades.
When you make the decision to become an apprentice, you are making a very big decision that will affect your lifestyle. Financial literacy, when it comes to going back to school, while being an apprentice, is one of the things we help educate and mentor with at Support Ontario Youth.
If you are considering the apprenticeship pathway, please get in touch with us, we can help educate and prepare you for success.
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