Difference between revisions of "Keeping Out of Trouble on Employment Insurance (8:IX)"

Once a claim is established, the basic eligibility requirement to receive regular EI benefits is that claimants be able to prove that they are “capable of, and available for work and unable to find suitable employment”. To help prove this, the claimant should keep a job search record.  This may make disentitlement less likely, and improve the chances of success should an appeal be necessary. In fact, the Commission may send to the claimant a form that is essentially a job search record. This is called an “active job search statement”. The statement will require the claimant to provide:  

*names of the businesses applied to and the names of the persons who interviewed the claimant;  

*type of employment applied for;  

Even though an “active job search statement” may not be required, the claimant should keep a job search record with this same information. The  job search record should include everything done to look for work. It should be made clear that every attempt or type of attempt counts  (including such things as contacting family members about employment opportunities, “cold calling,” etc.). The difficulty is that many claimants do not keep such records even though they have been warned to do so. In such cases, the claimant’s representative can only do the following:  

*a) advise the claimant to keep such lists in the future; and  

*b) (if true) argue that the claimant did not know that he or she had to keep such a list, and that any list now composed from memory is not a  complete one, as the claimant cannot remember the details of all the employment opportunities he or she pursued.