On Thursday, 20 October 2016, The Parliament was given a Government’s proposal on the changes in the Unemployment Security Act, where it is suggested that the unemployment allowance could be used to finance start-up grant, pay subsidy and mobility funding of an unemployed person in the future. The goal is to increase the flexibility of the use of budgeted resources, to secure the availability of services and increase the regional mobility. The proposal includes also incentives to work under a commission contracts because it is suggested that a commission work that lasts up to 2 weeks could not prevent from paying the unemployment allowance but the income would be adjusted to the earnings-related unemployment allowance.
The proposal also includes a suggestion that there would be more close communication between unemployed job seekers and TE office. This would be carried out with regular fixed-term interviews.
For more information on the proposal, please see the bulletin of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. You can see the whole proposal on the website of the Parliament in the most current legislation proposals (proposal number 209/2016). Unfortunately, the both texts are only available in Finnish and Swedish at the moment.