The Parliament has approved the amendment to the law, which abolishes the alternation leave system. The law enters into force on August 1. You can start alternation leave until the last day of July, after that it is no longer possible.
The employer and the employee agree on the leave by means of a written job alternation agreement. However, the employee does not have a subjective right to job alternation leave, as the job alternation leave has a voluntary basis. If you are working full-time, you can agree with your employer to take job alternation leave for a fixed period.
After concluding a job alternation agreement, your employer undertakes to hire a jobseeker who is registered as unemployed at the TE Office for at least the same period. The employer does not need to hire an unemployed person for the same tasks performed by the person taking the leave. The working time of the employee or employees hired for the duration of the job alternation leave must be at least equal to the working time of the employee who has taken the leave.
You can take job alternation leave if your full-time employment with the same employer has lasted at least 13 months before the start of the job alternation leave. Full-time employment is considered to be employment in which the working time exceeds 75% of the full-time employment applicable in the sector.
A 13-month period can include a maximum of 30 calendar days in total of unpaid absence. Absence due to illness or accident, both paid and unpaid, is treated as employment. Unpaid absences for other reasons (for example, lay-offs or industrial action) can last for a maximum of 30 calendar days over a 13-month period.
Job alternation leave requires at least 20 years of work history before the start of the job alternation leave. All work that accrues a pension, including self-employment, is included in the work history. Work you have performed before you turned 23 years of age can also be included in your work history. Periods comparable to work, such as family leave and time spent in military and non-military service, also accumulate your work history. These periods of employment, which are comparable to employment, may not exceed 25 % of the time worked.
Work performed in EU/EEA countries or Switzerland is also taken into account when calculating work history.
If you have been on job alternation leave before, you must have worked for five years from the end of the previous leave when you take job alternation leave again.
The use of job alternation leave is tied to the old-age pension age in accordance with the Employees' Pensions Act in force at the time, so that the upper age limit is the minimum age for old-age pension minus three years. The upper age limit applies to persons born in 1957 and later.
You are not entitled to job alternation compensation if, among other things
This list is not exhaustive.
NB! You cannot fill in the earnings-related allowance application for eServices as an application for job alternation compensation.
Apply for job alternation compensation with a job alternation compensation application. Attach the following
Submit the original job alternation agreement to the TE Office well in advance of the start of your job alternation leave. The TE Office will provide us with the statement required for the payment of job alternation compensation. Form for applying for job alternation compensation
You can submit the application for job alternation compensation to us at the A-kassa even before the alternation leave starts. Please deliver the necessary attachments to the application as soon as you receive them, because we cannot complete your application until we have received all the necessary attachments.
We ask you to submit the application for job alternation compensation and the necessary attachments to us via our secure contact form (select alternation compensation as the subject) or by mail. You can take clear pictures of the attachments with your smartphone and attach the image files in the Attachments section of the contact form.
You can also send the application and attachments by post. Our postal address is: Avoin työttömyyskassa, PL 116, 00531 Helsinki
The amount of your job alternation compensation is 70 per cent of the earnings-related daily allowance. The amount of job alternation compensation is calculated from your wages, subject to withholding tax, for at least 52 calendar weeks preceding the job alternation leave. No child increases or increases included in the earnings-related allowance are paid in addition to the job alternation compensation. The job alternation compensation is paid without a waiting period.
You can take alternation leave for 100–180 calendar days, but it should be taken in one period. If you have already agreed on job alternation leave with your employer, you can still postpone the start date of the leave before it starts or shorten or extend the duration of the leave once it has started. The extension of job alternation leave must be agreed upon two months before the end of the leave.
As a rule, we pay alternation compensation every four weeks so that the day of payment is Wednesdays.
As a rule, we pay alternation compensation every four weeks so that the day of payment is Wednesdays. The job alternation compensation is paid for five days per week. Job alternation compensation is taxable income. As a rule, we receive the original tax information on our members from the Tax Administration. You can find the schedule for the payment of alternation compensation here.
Please notify us without delay of any issues affecting the payment of your job alternation leave.
For example, if
The job alternation compensation is taxable income. The unemployment fund receives information from the tax authority at the beginning of the tax year (February 1) about the withholding percentages given for the salary of its members. If the unemployment fund has not received the withholding tax information about you when your job alternation leave starts, we ask you to deliver a copy of your tax card to us.
According to the tax authority's order, the withholding percentage of the job alternation allowance is always at least 25, if the tax percentage of the wage income tax card is used in the payment of the benefit.
If you have obtained a change tax card for the benefit, deliver the tax card to the unemployment fund. In this case, the withholding of the benefit is done according to the percentages indicated in the change tax card.
The unemployment fund provides the tax authority with information on the benefits paid and the withholding taxes made.
Postal address:
Hakaniemenranta 1
PL 116, 00531 Helsinki
