Starting from 1 January 2020, the unemployment funds will start to receive earnings payment data on applicants of earnings-related unemployment allowance from the Incomes Register.
This means that those applying for earnings-related unemployment allowance no longer need to attach as much information to their applications as before, because the unemployment funds will receive information directly from the Incomes Register.
The Incomes Register is a national electronic database that contains comprehensive information on wages, pensions and benefits on an individual level. Information in the register is received from employers and other parties obliged to report the wages and benefits they pay. Information on pensions and benefits will be reported to the Incomes Register starting from 1 January 2021.
In addition to the unemployment funds, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela), the Finnish Tax Administration and Statistics Finland use the information in the Incomes Register. The authorities and other users of the information receive only the information that they are authorised to access and that they need in their activities from the Incomes Register.
Not all information can be found from the Incomes Register even in the future
The Incomes Register will make applying for earnings-related unemployment allowance easier for many people, but you may still be asked to provide information on wages and employment relationships. This is either because the necessary information has not been entered into the Incomes Register, or because in your situation, the information in the Incomes Register is not sufficient for processing your application.
The employer can report income information to the Incomes Register by using a reporting method with lower or greater level of detail. In addition to this, the employer can report voluntary information to the Incomes Register. The reporting method with a lower level of detail means that the wages are reported without itemisation. In the reporting method with a greater level of detail, the wages are itemised by wage component. In addition to these, employers can also fill in information on the wage earnings periods, if they wish.
If the employer has used the reporting method with greater detail to enter the earnings payment data into the Income Register and has also reported voluntary information, it is more likely that the unemployment fund will receive the information required to process an earnings-related unemployment allowance application directly from the Incomes Register, and the applicant will not need to deliver all earnings payment data or employment relationship information personally.
The KOKO fund is preparing for the change right now. We will provide more information on the effects of the introduction of the Incomes Register on applying for a daily allowance.