The fund cannot give preliminary rulings on the right
to earnings-related allowance
The sound of
returning birds has turned our thoughts to the coming summer. Many members have
contacted us about concerns over whether they are entitled to an
earnings-related allowance from the fund after the school year ends. Am I
entitled to an earnings-related allowance during the summer?
We understand the
concerns of our members and their wish to confirm eligibility for the allowance
beforehand. However, the unemployment fund cannot give a preliminary ruling on
your right to an earnings-related allowance. The right to an earnings-related
allowance is decided based on your application and its appendices and a labour
policy statement by the Employment and Economic Development Office.
Your right to the
allowance depends entirely on your personal circumstances. Even if you appear
to be entitled to an earnings-related allowance, the ruling may easily change
as the result of details that emerge as your application is processed. We can
only provide a general outline of the conditions for receiving an earnings-related
allowance.
Would I meet the conditions for receiving an
earnings-related allowance?
You
may be entitled to an earnings-related allowance if you have fulfilled the
employment condition while you have been a member of the unemployment fund. You
also need to meet other general conditions for receiving the allowance.
Unemployment allowance is paid on the condition that you are available for work
and agree to take up full-time work if offered. For this reason, when your
unemployment begins, you must register at the Employment and Economic
Development (TE) Office as an unemployed jobseeker in order to be eligible for
an earnings-related allowance.
The
employment condition is met if you have been employed at a job with a minimum
of 18 hours per calendar week for at least 26 weeks during the past 28 months
before becoming unemployed. In the education sector (= teaching at an
educational institution), you must have worked at least half of the minimum
weekly hours of a full-time hourly teacher post in the education sector in
question. Usually, the minimum is 8 hours per week. In order for work to be counted
towards the employment condition, you must have been a member of the
unemployment fund at the time.
The employment condition can be met
based on several periods of work (including short substitutions) and is also
accrued by paid employment other than work in your own sector. The 26 weeks
required to meet the employment condition do not need to be consecutive, but the weeks are reset if you have
been absent from the labour market for more than six months without an
acceptable reason.
To receive the allowance, you must
be an unemployed jobseeker. As a rule, earnings-related allowance is not paid
for a period of full-time work of more than two weeks. However, you may be
entitled to an earnings-related allowance while employed full time if you have
been laid off temporarily or in a comparable situation. Situations comparable
to temporary lay-off are fairly common in the education sector for hourly
teachers, mainly due to the operating periods of educational institutions.
These include situations such as holiday periods of educational institutions
when the employer cannot offer any work and does not pay wages. In order to be
comparable to a temporary lay-off, such unpaid periods must be agreed in the
employment contract.
Initial application after becoming unemployed
Earnings-related allowance is
applied for retroactively. You can apply for the allowance easily in our
Openetti online service. You can send your first application for the allowance
after you have been unemployed for at least two calendar weeks ending in a
Sunday. After this, you can apply for the earnings-related allowance in periods
of either four full calendar weeks or one month at a time.
Remember to register as a jobseeker
at the Employment and Economic Development (TE) Office from the first day of
your unemployment at the latest! In order to receive the earnings-related
allowance, you must be registered as seeking full-time work.
Needed steps for applying
Please also view the needed steps for applying for earnings-related allowance through our website’s Earnings-related allowance
-section: 1. Registering at the
Employment and Economic Development Office (TE Office), 2. Sending your
application, 3. Waiting for the
application to be processed.
For
more information about earnings-related allowance and applying, please visit
our website. We recommend starting with these:
– Earnings-related allowance -> Right to earnings-related daily
allowance -> Conditions for claiming earnings-related allowance.
– Earnings-related allowance -> Applying for earnings-related allowance
(includes instructions for applying and a list of the most commonly needed
attachments).
– Help and support -> Openetti -> From our Openetti instructions you
will find technical support on how to fill in the application and use the
Openetti service.