In mid-June, the number of recipients of earnings-related allowance dropped at A-kassa Open Unemployment Fund by more than 20% compared to mid-May, and this discrepancy persisted until the end of the month. In June, a total of 22,561 members, or 9.3%, received earnings-related allowance. The share of lay-off period daily allowance recipients stood at over 40% until May but fell down to 32.5% by the end of June.
Having started in May, the downward trend in the number of earnings-related allowance recipients continued in June at A-kassa with an even sharper decline. Even though the June number, 22,561 members, was significantly smaller than the May figure, it was still 11% more than in June 2023. Out of the recipients of earnings-related allowance, 24% were women and 76% men. The number of recipients is expected to decline further in July, but more moderately than in June.
Throughout early 2024, A-kassa has paid particular attention to the share of laid-off persons among those receiving earnings-related allowance. The share has remained around 42% to 44% all year. While it looked as though the share started to go down in mid-May, it was still at 40% at the end of the month due to the considerable decline in the total number of recipients of earnings-related allowance. In June, however, the share of laid-off persons went down markedly, dropping to 32.5%.
The share of recipients of adjusted daily allowance has been on slight increase since April. With an increase of 1.4 percentage points from May, the share stands at 17.3% in June.
Earnings-related allowance costs still down
Apart from a spike in April, A-kassa’s earnings-related allowance costs have been in a downward trend. This continued in June with the earnings-related allowance costs going down 8.4 million euros from May. Earnings-related allowance costs totalled 29.3 million euros in June, an increase of 6.2% from June 2023. If the trend remains similar to past years, earnings-related allowance costs will continue to go down in July.
Earnings-related allowance applications and number of payout days in June
In June, the number of payout days totalled 17.8, almost the same as in May and one day less than in June last year.
In June, A-kassa received a total of 29,621 earnings-related allowance applications, 4,344 less than in May. However, this is still a considerable increase of 26% from June last year. Most of the applications, 60.69%, were follow-up applications. The share of first-time applications was the same as in May, 5.9%. Applications for adjusted allowance made up 33.3% of all applications.
A-kassa’s processing times remained excellent in June. First-time applications had an average processing time of 9.4 days while applications for adjusted allowance had an average processing time of 5.8 days.
Members satisfied with our customer service
Our phone service received a total of 5,265 calls in June, with an average response time of 1:43 minutes. Based on our phone service feedback survey, 76% of respondents were highly satisfied and 20% quite satisfied with the service.
We received 3,579 messages via our eService in June, down 15% from May. Our chat service hosted a total of 789 discussions in June, with an average queuing time of 27 seconds and an average discussion length of 10:13 minutes. Based on our chat service feedback survey, 74% of respondents were highly satisfied and 17% quite satisfied with A-kassa’s service.
Monthly statistical summaries are available at the A-kassa website
