Employment Insurance zone changes 'unfair'

The P.E.I. Coalition for Fair EI held a news conference Monday to once again outline its concerns about the impact of employment insurance zone changes.

The new rules, which take effect on Oct. 12, will divide the Island into two zones for calculating EI benefits.

The Charlottetown region will include the city and a surrounding area and the second region will include the rest of the province.

People in the Charlottetown region will require more hours of work to qualify than most people in the area currently require, and people who live in the rest of the province will require fewer.

That's something the union that represents public employees, the mayor of Charlottetown and otherscall unfair.

"This is yet another change to the EI system which is targeting seasonal workers as well as those in low paying precarious work such as women and youth, " said Lori MacKay of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

"The workers and industries that need it the most, are the ones that are being hurt."

When the changes were announced, the federal government said they better reflect differences in job opportunities in rural and urban P.E.I.