As summer is approaching, we get a lot of questions about the impact of annual holidays and holiday bonuses on the payment of earnings-related daily allowance, for example. In this article, we have collected current instructions for the unemployed and laid-off.
Keep your job search valid even in summer
If you are unemployed and laid off, the job search must be valid at all times in accordance with the TE office’s instructions, even during summer.
– If a full-time lay-off is interrupted during the summer for annual leave, the job application can still be maintained, says Anna-Stiina Luukkainen, Benefit Director at the KOKO fund.
Report annual holidays and earned income in the application form
If you are paid holiday pay based on the salary of a full-time job, you are not entitled to a daily allowance for the holiday days. If, on the other hand, your salary is based on part-time wages, the daily allowance is paid as an adjusted daily allowance.
The holiday bonus is taken into account in the calculation of the daily allowance in the case of holiday bonus based on the salary of part-time work, or it is not possible to separate which part of the salary is determined on full-time work and which part on part-time work. Holiday bonus based on full-time work does not affect the daily allowance.
– You can apply for daily allowance in your normal application rhythm even when there have been annual holidays or related payments during the period, Luukkainen instructs.
– Enter “annual leave” in the application form for the days you have been on annual leave. If you have received holiday pay or holiday bonus during the application period, enter it in the application even if you have not been on holiday during that period.
The fund receives income data from the Incomes Register, but the processing of the application can be sped up if the applicant submits the payslip to the fund themselves which shows the paid holiday pay and holiday bonus. The calculation can be sent via eAsionti service.
Apply for daily allowance within three months
Luukkainen points out that unemployment security must be applied for within three months of becoming unemployed or laid off. If you become unemployed on 1 July, for example, the application must be at the unemployment fund no later than 1 October. Further applications must also be sent to the fund within three months of the start of each application period.
– If you are occasionally working and occasionally laid off, it may seem like a good idea to apply for daily allowance at once for all the lay-off days from here and there. However, it is not advisable to delay the application for too long so that the three-month period does not accidentally pass and the daily allowance is therefore not received.
If the employment relationship ends during the lay-off, a notice of termination must be submitted to the unemployment fund.
– During the notice period, the employer pays your salary and therefore the fund does not pay daily allowance. As a rule, we receive data from the Incomes Register on the batches paid by the employer related to the termination of employment. If necessary, we will ask for more detailed information from the applicant for the daily allowance or about their employer’s payroll.