Algorithmic Impact Assessment - Record of Employments (ROE) Comments Assessment

Record of Employment Comments Classification Model: Reducing Manual Review of Text Comments

The Record of Employment (ROE) form contains a text field (Block 18) for entering any details about exceptional circumstances that should be communicated to Service Canada to clarify the information on the ROE. The information provided in Block 18 should not repeat information that appears in other areas of the form. However, in many cases, Service Canada receives ROE forms with comments in this field containing information that is either redundant to what is provided elsewhere, or irrelevant for the purposes of processing an Employment Insurance (EI) claim.

Whenever the last ROE that is part of an EI claim has text in Block 18, a work item will be created for a Service Canada agent to review the information manually. This results in additional human labour to process these work items, and also slows down the automation processes in place.

The Record of Employment Comments Classification (ROECC) model is intended to process incoming ROE forms that have comments in Block 18 and determine whether they contain information about the Reason for Separation (RFS, i.e., the reason the ROE was issued by the employer). If a comment is classified as having information about an RFS, it is compared with the RFS information identified elsewhere on the form (Block 16). The model may make changes to the form given certain conditions:

a) The model must classify the comment as containing information about an RFS;

b) The model must be confident enough about this classification, as defined by RFS-specific thresholds;

c) The RFS information must be generally consistent with the RFS in Block 16, in accordance with the same rules Service Canada agents would use; and

d) The comment must not contain additional information such as dates or dollar amounts.

If all these conditions are met, the model may adjust the information in Block 16, if necessary, and move the comment to a separate area where it will not trigger a work item. Otherwise, the comment is left untouched, and a work item will be opened as before.

The ROECC model does not result in any changes to the EI eligibility criteria and does not make any decisions about an EI claim. The original information that was on the form when submitted is present for Service Canada agents if needed. The model reads only the text in Block 18 and the RFS code in Block 16; no other information is used in the classification of the text. Any concerns regarding the output provided by the model may be handled through the existing EI application and reconsideration processes.