TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th April, 2020) More than 5.5 million Canadians have applied for some form of economic support since mid-March, as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to take its toll on the country's economy, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion Carla Qualtrough said on Friday.
"Yesterday, we received just over 615,000 new [Canada Emergency Response Benefit] applications," Qualtrough said. "This brings us to a total of 3.8 million since Monday and 5.62 million since March 15."
The minister added that a total of 5.08 million applications have already been processed.
Last month, the government announced the establishment of Canada Emergency Response Benefit program, a $1,400 taxable benefit for workers who have had their income streams affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program is expected to cost $17 billion.
On Thursday, in a startling sign of the impact the pandemic is having on the Canadian economy, the Federal statistics agency announced that more than a million Canadians lost their jobs in March, pushing the unemployment rate up 2.2 percentage points to 7.8 percent - the largest one-month increase since comparable data became available in 1976.
