In March, 13% of all Open Unemployment Fund members received earnings-related allowance from the fund. Compared to March of last year, the number of recipients increased by 23.1%. Out of all daily earnings-related allowance recipients, the share of lay-off period daily allowance recipients remained high in March. The bump in the waiting period is reflected in the number of benefit days for which allowance was paid.
In March, a total of 32,216 members received earnings-related allowance from the Open Unemployment Fund. The number increased 23.1% from March 2023 when earnings-related allowance was paid out to 26,181 members.
The share of lay-off period daily allowance recipients remained high in March. Out of all earnings-related allowance recipients, the share of laid-off persons was 42.5%. This is a slight increase from February when the share was 42.4%. The share of laid-off persons has remained high since autumn. The share of those receiving adjusted daily allowance has also remained roughly the same since the start of the year, i.e. close to 13%.
The unemployment rate of A-kassa members was at the same level in March as in February, as 13.2% of members received earnings-related allowance during those months. For March, the number increased by 1.7% percentage points compared to the same month last year.
Bump in waiting period decreases number of payout days
Average number of payout days has decreased slightly since the start of the year. In March, the number was 17.9 days which is 0.8 days less than in February. The number decreased by one full day from January to February. Compared to March of last year, the average number of payout days is now 1.7 days less. The decrease is explained by the increase in lay-offs which began in the autumn of last year and the revised waiting period which increased from five to seven days at the beginning of the year.
Earnings-related allowance costs down
Earnings-related allowance costs have been on a downward trend since the start of the year. In March, earnings-related allowances amounted to 44.7 million euros, a decrease of 1.9 million from February. The decrease from January to February stood at 0.6 million euros. The legislative amendment implemented at the start of the year, which increased the waiting period from five to seven days, may have contributed to the decrease in earnings-related allowance costs. However, earnings-related allowance costs were up by 5.9 million euros compared to one year ago, representing a 15.2% increase.
A-kassa received a total of 39,888 earnings-related allowance applications in March, representing an increase of 26.2% compared to March last year. Most of the applications, 62.6%, were follow-up applications. The share of first-time applications went down from February, standing now at 7.9%. The share of applications for adjusted allowance was 29.5%.
Application processing status improved in March
Despite the high number of applications, A-kassa improved its processing time in March. First-time applications had an average processing time of 11.3 days, three days less than in February. What’s more, applications for adjusted allowance were processed in 5.5 days which is 2.4 days less than in the month before.
Positive feedback for customer service
Our customer service received a total of 8,840 phone calls in March. Their average response time was 4:20 minutes. Based on our phone service feedback survey, 64% of respondents were highly satisfied and 22% quite satisfied with A-kassa’s service.
We received 5,221 message via our eService, which is 6% less than in March of last year. Our chat service hosted a total of 759 chats during March. Average queuing time at the service was 1:18 minutes. One discussion lasted 11:20 minutes on average. Based on our chat service feedback survey, 70% of respondents were highly satisfied and 17% quite satisfied with A-kassa’s service.
Monthly statistical summaries are available at the A-kassa website
