There are several different forms of lay-offs, each with their specific impact on daily allowance payouts. Furthermore, the form of a lay-off has an impact on the final amount of daily allowance.
Lay-off options:
- full-time ⇒ earnings-related allowance is paid for lay-off days
- shortening of weekly working hours of a full-time job by full working days ⇒ aearnings-related allowance is paid for lay-off days
- shortening of daily working hours ⇒ adjusted earnings-related allowance
- combination of all of the above
Paying out earnings-related allowance during a lay-off always requires the fund to have a statement from an employment authority. You should register as an unemployed jobseeker at Job Market Finland no later than your first lay-off day, as payouts of earnings-related allowance for the lay-off period can start no earlier than from the date of registration.
Full-time lay-off
- A full-time lay-off refers to a period of at least one full calendar week (Mon to Sun) without a single paid workday.
- All lay-off days are entered in the application as unemployment days, including accurate information for weekends.
- Any other work or entrepreneurial activities must be specified in the application. Income from other work is adjusted with the payment-based method.
- Midweek holidays are entered separately if they are subject to a separate compensation or if your salary was not reduced due to a lay-off.
Lay-off for a shortened workweek
- A lay-off for a shortened workweek means that while full workdays are suspended, the lay-off does not last a full calendar week from Monday to Sunday.
- The application must always be filled out for full calendar weeks, even when the lay-off does not last a full calendar week.
- The information you report in the application should reflect your actual situation, meaning that you should only report such days as unemployed lay-off days where a lay-off caused you to have reduced salary and shortened working hours. You should also report workdays and their working hours for the calendar week in your application.
- Any other work or entrepreneurial activities must be specified in the application. Income from other work is adjusted with the earnings-based method, meaning that income is adjusted if you worked during an adjustment period which contained lay-off days.
- Midweek holidays are entered separately if they are subject to a separate compensation or if your salary was not reduced due to a lay-off.
Lay-off for a shortened workday
- A lay-off for a shortened workday means that daily working hours are shortened.
- The application should be filled out for four full calendar weeks or for a month, whichever accurately reflects your salary periods.
- The information you report in the application should reflect your actual situation, meaning that you should only report such days as unemployed lay-off days where a lay-off caused you to have reduced salary and shortened working hours. You should also report workdays and their working hours for the calendar week in your application.
- Any other work or entrepreneurial activities must be specified in the application. Income from other work is adjusted with the payment-based method, i.e. when income was paid during an adjustment period which contained lay-off days.
- Midweek holidays are entered separately if they are subject to a separate compensation or if your salary was not reduced due to a lay-off.
Mixed lay-off – so, what is that then?
- A mixed lay-off refers to a situation where the lay-off is a combination of all the various lay-off options. During a mixed lay-off, the laid off person works both full days and shorter days but is also laid off for full days.
- If the lay-off includes both shortened daily working hours and full lay-off days, the day when you had no working time at all is entered in the application as an unemployed day.
- Daily allowance payouts are adjusted.
Adjusted daily allowance for lay-off period
By definition, ‘adjusted daily allowance’ is an allowance which accounts for salary income earned during a workday that was shortened by lay-off, or for salary income earned during both a shortened workday and a shortened workweek.
Daily allowance for the lay-off period is also adjusted if, during the lay-off, you receive income from part-time or on-call work for another employer or from part-time entrepreneurial activities. The adjustment also takes income from other work or part-time entrepreneurial activities into account.
If you have been laid off from part-time work, this income continues to be adjusted during your lay-off for as long as you receive income from the part-time job during the lay-off. This means that you will receive adjusted daily allowance even for your full-time lay-off period for as long as you are paid a salary for your part-time work.
As an additional prerequisite for receiving adjusted daily allowance for your lay-off period, your working hours are not allowed to exceed 80% of the working hours of a full-time employee. For a shortened workday, your working hours are reviewed for the entire adjustment period, which is either four full calendar weeks or a calendar month, depending on salary periods. For a shortened workweek, working hours are reviewed per calendar week.
Adjusted daily allowance is paid in equal instalments for the duration of the application period for each weekday for which you are entitled to the benefit. Daily allowance is paid for both lay-off days and workdays.
