The province’s Minister of Labour says government is extremely concerned with the timing of changes made to EI that will have a detrimental effect on seasonal workers in many rural parts of the province.

Bernard Davis has written the federal government asking that serious consideration be given to the changes and the negative impact it will have on tens of thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Davis says the changes will have far-reaching effects.

He says they came into effect on Sunday, with many plant workers for instance, left with no way to make up the extra hours needed to qualify for their EI.

He says the province is divided into two regions for the purposes of calculating EI qualifying criteria, Region 1 which includes St. John’s and the Avalon, and Region 2, which encompasses the rest of the province. He’d like Ottawa to consider dividing Region 2 into sub-regions to better reflect the province’s demographics.