Mr. Speaker, at least the hon. member was prepared to admit that it was her government that, as I quoted earlier from an article, gutted the EI program and system in 1997 in particular.
I might say that the issue she takes with the variable entry rate in that system was something that was amended by the previous Liberal government when the unemployment rate was 8.4%, higher than it is today and higher than it was last month. They take a lot of responsibility for what happened, but we have taken a number of steps to enhance and expand the system and also to deal with the issue raised in terms of dealing with the volumes that we now have.
I will outline very shortly the many measures we have taken to ensure that Canadian workers who have unfortunately lost their jobs receive their employment insurance benefits as quickly as possible. As I said during the adjournment proceedings last night on this very same topic, our government recognized the increased need for processing and service capacity. We have acted and we will continue to act to meet the needs of Canadians in this regard.
As all members of the House know, during this economic downturn there has been a significant increase of EI claims and inquiries. The difficult economic circumstances facing Canadians have made for historically high volumes of calls being received in our service centres. To serve Canadians who need help and to ensure that they receive that help as quickly as possible, this government has taken action. We have allocated an additional $60 million for EI processing. These funds are being used to hire additional staff to ensure that Canadians who need help are getting it as soon as possible. To date, we have hired over 900 people to help deal with the increased volumes. As the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said in the House, we are in the process of hiring 400 more people to help Canadians.
Beyond this, we have taken many other steps. We have recalled recent retirees and reassigned staff members to EI processing. Call centre agents are working overtime on a voluntary basis. Call centre hours of service have been extended and work loads are being shared to accelerate speed of payment and ensure that Canadians across the country will receive speedy, uniform service. We are also increasing the automation of claims processing. We have processed significantly more claims this year over the same time last year. We continue to monitor EI service very closely and we continue to take action to ensure that we are meeting the needs of Canadians.
We have also taken action to help Canadians through our economic action plan. We will help over 400,000 Canadians benefit from an additional five weeks of EI benefits. We will help 190,000 people, including long-tenured and older workers, get retrained to find a new job and to put food on the table for their families. Right now, we are helping over 93,000 Canadians stay working through our expansion and improvement of the work-sharing program. We have cut much of the red tape. We extended the weeks.
We recognize as a government the needs of Canadian workers and we are delivering the help they need to get through these difficult times by many of the initiatives I have outlined and many of the steps that have been taken, including the infusion of additional resources to ensure that we can handle the capacity.