32,222 members received an earnings-related daily allowance from the Open Unemployment Fund in February. This was 35.3 per cent higher than in February last year. The proportion of those receiving daily allowance due to a lay-off remained relatively high being 42.4 per cent of all recipients.
In February, a total of 32,222 members received an earnings-related daily allowance from the Open Unemployment Fund. The numbers are 35.3% higher than during last year’s February when 23,820 members received the allowance.
The proportion of recipients who were laid off remained fairly high, although there was a small decrease compared to January. Out of all recipients of earnings-related daily allowance in February, 42.4 per cent received daily allowance due to a lay-off, compared to 44.2 per cent in January. The proportion of those receiving adjusted daily allowance was 13.0 per cent, remaining at the same level as in January.
Overall, the unemployment rate of the A-kassa members has increased since the autumn of last year. In February, 13.2 per cent of all members were receiving the earnings-related daily allowance. This is 2.8 percentage points higher than last year during the same period.
The number of paid days falling
The average number of days of allowance paid was 18.7 days in February, which is 0.8 days less than during the same period the previous year. The number of paid days also decreased by one day compared to January. The declining trend in the paid days started at the end of last year and is explained by the increase in the number of lay-offs since the autumn of last year. The lay-offs are usually short in duration and are not continuous, meaning fewer payable days when compared to long periods of unemployment.
With the recent amendments in law having come into force in January, the waiting period for the unemployment benefit increased from five to seven days. This may have also slightly reduced the number of paid days.
The first months of the year saw far more daily allowances paid than last year
By the end of February, the amount of earnings-related daily allowances paid reached EUR 46.6 million. That’s 31.6 per cent more than last year’s equivalent.
In February, A-kassa received a total of 38,568 applications for earnings-related daily allowance. 60 per cent were follow-up applications, which forms the majority of the received applications. The proportion of first applications was 11 per cent and adjusted allowance applications was 29 per cent.
The average processing time for first applications was 14.3 days and for adjusted allowances 7.9 days.
Satisfaction with customer service remained high
The customer service received 10,012 phone calls in February which were answered in 4:23 minutes on average. Based on the customer service feedback survey, 63 per cent of respondents were very satisfied and 27 per cent somewhat satisfied with A-kassa’s service.
The online services received 6,240 messages in February, being 19 per cent more than during last year’s February. A total of 963 chats were conducted in the online services in February. The average chat queuing time was 1:35 minutes whereas the conversation time was 11:32 minutes.
The monthly statistic summaries can be found on the A-kassa website
