The number of people receiving employment insurance benefits fell 2.4 per cent in August, Statistics Canada said Tuesday.

The drop of 19,100 people was the second consecutive monthly decrease, following a 3.8 per cent decline in July.

People looking for work search on computers at a Worksource office in Portland, Ore., in August. The number of Canadians receiving jobless benefits declined in August. As well, the average number of weeks spent collecting benefits is lower in Canada than in the U.S. (Don Ryan/Associated Press)

Regionally, the trend was broad-based, with declines coming in almost all provinces. Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba had the largest overall decreases. Quebec and New Brunswick posted monthly increases.

There were 763,200 total beneficiaries in August, up much 52.5 per cent from October 2008, when Canadian employment peaked. In some places, such as Vancouver, Victoria, and the Ontario metropolitan areas of Sudbury and Kitchener, the number of people receiving EI benefits has doubled in the past year.

It's not clear whether the August decline represents people returning to paid employment and thus no longer being entitled to EI, or how much of the trend can be explained by people simply running out of benefits but still remaining unemployed.

"People seem to be running in and out of unemployment as opposed to stuck in it forever."— Avery Shenfeld, CIBC economist

Statistics Canada does not track such data nationally, but there are other ways of digging below the surface of the jobs picture.

"Not from this data, no, but by looking at the Labour Force Survey [due out later this month], you can disaggregate, on average, how many weeks people have been unemployed," CIBC economist Avery Shenfeld told CBC News.

In that regard, Canada is doing fairly well. People typically spend 15 to 17 weeks on unemployment in this country. In the U.S., the figure is closer to 25 weeks, he said.

"People in Canada seem to be running in and out of unemployment as opposed to just stuck in it forever," Shenfeld said.

The news is not all positive. The number of initial and renewal claims for benefits increased 8.2 per cent in August, to 298,300, after two months of declines.

The downturn in the labour market has affected young people the most.

In August, the number of people under 25 receiving EI benefits nearly doubled, up 94 per cent compared with August 2008. The increase was most pronounced for young men (up 114.5 per cent), while among young women the increase was relatively slower, at 61.9 per cent.