The staggering of earnings-related unemployment allowance entered into force in September 2024. Staggering means that the amount of the earnings-related allowance is gradually decreased the longer the unemployment lasts. The daily allowance is reduced to 80% of the initial amount when the earnings-related unemployment allowance has been paid for 40 days, and to 75% of the initial amount when the allowance has been paid for 170 days.
During 2025, the effects of the staggering have started to be clearly visible among the KOKO fund’s recipients of the earnings-related unemployment allowance.
The first KOKO allowance recipients to whom the staggering system applies were transferred under the system in November 2024. In January 2025, around 3% of the allowance recipients had been transferred to the first staggering phase, and in September 2025, the share had already increased to more than 24%.
In September 2025, around 4% of allowance recipients were covered by the second staggering phase. The lower share of recipients is due to the fact that the second staggering occurs after the allowance has been paid for 170 days, i.e. after about eight months of unemployment. Since the staggering was introduced in September 2024, the time point when the first fund members could have reached this limit was in summer 2025.
For those who are partially employed, i.e. those receiving adjusted daily allowance, the staggering is done slower depending on the number of full days of daily allowance paid. In September 2025, 19% of recipients of adjusted earnings-related unemployment allowance were in the first staggering phase (24% of all allowance recipients) and 1.2% in the second phase (4.1% of all allowance recipients).
The staggering applies to anyone whose unemployment started after 2 September 2024 and who has received salary in or after September 2024.
You can keep track of the accumulation of your paid daily allowance days in KOKO’s eSERVICE. KOKO’s daily allowance calculator will give you an estimate of how the staggering would affect your daily allowance.
More information on the staggering system: Staggering of earnings-related allowance
For more information on employment trends among our members, see our latest statistics release (in Finnish only): Tilastot