A new law has become effective on 1.1.2018. The law will require an applicant of earnings-related allowance to indicate activity during their unemployment. If an applicant has not been active by the means defined in the law, the amount of their daily allowance will be decreased by 4,65%.
Activation model in a nutshell
In the activation model an unemployment fund monitors the activity of an applicant’s job search in periods of 65 payable days of earnings-related allowance. This means that your fund checks whether you have been active in the way defined by the law every time you have received daily allowance for 65 days. If the applicant has not been active in the way defined by the law, the allowance will be 4,65 % lower for the next 65 payable days.
Sufficient level of activity is, within a monitoring period of 65 payable days, to:
• Work in an employment relationship for at least 18 hours (in the teaching branch 8 hours) (pay according to the collective labour agreement, or at least €1,189 per month, or €6.91 per hour).
• You earn at least 241,04€ as an entrepreneur.
• You take part in activities promoting employment, as assigned by the TE Office, for the duration of five days:
– Activities that promote employment (independent study on the unemployment benefit, independent study for immigrants, labour market training, job search training and career training, work try-out, study trial and rehabilitating work activities) or
– Other activities that promote employment and are organised by the employment services or
– Activities that support recruiting, such as a recruitment trial.
The hours of the above-mentioned means of demonstrating activity cannot be combined. This means that the activity goal must be reached by either working or participating in activities that promote employment, not both. Similarly, it is not possible to combine the specified activities that promote employment.
Sending job applications or participating classes that you consider as services promoting employment is not enough to fulfill the definition of being active.
The TE services is responsible for the actions supporting employment. For inquiries related to job opportunities and services promoting employment, please contact TE services: http://www.te-palvelut.fi/te/en/index.html.
If you participate an action supporting employment, defined by TE office, please inform us of the name of the service in your application for earnings-related allowance. IAET-kassa will ask for further information if needed.
The 65-day period
All the days which earnings-related allowance is paid for are counted in the 65-day monitoring period. It makes no difference, whether you have received full or adjusted allowance or if a social benefit has been deducted from the allowance. The allowance will decrease by a maximum of 4,65 %. Each paid day accumulates one day of the monitoring period counter.
The first monitoring period will begin on 1.1.2018. In other words, the activity will be checked for the first time, once the applicant has been paid for 65 days after 1.1.2018. This will be in the beginning of April at the earliest.
In the model, the applicants who are receiving earnings-related allowance for additional allowance days are also required to indicate activity.
Activity is not required if:
• you are receiving daily allowance for a lay-off period of under 65 days
• you have a pending application for disability pension
• you work as a caregiver
• you receive a social benefit based on disability or an injury
The daily allowance is paid without deduction when no activity is required.
The monitoring period of 65 days is reset and the daily allowance will be paid without deduction:
• when you have been employed in a full-time job for a consecutive period of more than two weeks
• when you have employed yourself as an entrepreneur or in an equivalent way consecutively for more than two weeks
• if your earnings-related daily allowance is rejected because you have exceeded the 80-per cent limit in working hours
• if your earnings-related daily allowance has been rejected based on your income
• if you have been issued a qualification period or an obligation to work
• if you have re-fulfilled your employment condition
The activation model for temporarily laid off applicants
If you have been laid off by reducing your daily working hours
(meaning that you are working part of the day and laid off for the rest of the day and you are paid adjusted allowance)
Activity of a person laid off on a shorter working day is monitored.
If you have been entirely laid off or by reducing your weekly working hours
(meaning that the layoff covers entire days and you receive full daily allowance)
The activity requirements of the activation model are not applied to continuous layoff periods under 65 days. For you as a laid-off person, this means that your activity is only monitored if you have already received daily allowance continuously for 64 payable days since 1.1.2018. The days for which you have been paid allowance are counted in the 64 days.
If your layoff is not continuous, meaning you work for the employer who laid you off from time to time, the 64 days will always start over when you return as an applicant of daily allowance. For example, if you are working every other week and laid off every other, counting the 64 days will start over after each working week. The activation model is not applied until you have received allowance for a continuous 64 payable days without interruptions since 1.1.2018.
In case your continuous layoff gets prolonged and the activity model is applied to you: you cannot fulfill the activity requirements by working individual entire days for your own employer (where you were laid off from), because no allowance is paid for those days.
Read more: Frequently Asked Questions about the Active Model