Parliament approved the staggering

Topics

• Income security
• Law change
• Unemployment
• YTK

Parliament has approved the remaining changes to unemployment benefit legislation planned for this year. The latest package of laws includes the staggering of the earnings-related daily allowance, the abolition of age-related exemptions and a change to the wage subsidy.

Staggering of the daily allowance

From next autumn, the amount of the earnings-related daily allowance will be staggered. This means that your earnings-related allowance will decrease as your unemployment becomes longer. The staggering will take place in such a way that the earnings-related allowance will decrease

• to 80% of the initial level after 40 days, i.e. after about two months, and
• to 75% of the initial level after 170 days, i.e. after eight months

We will apply the staggering after you meet the new euroised working condition and your maximum payment period starts on or after 2.9.2024.

The staggering also applies to the adjusted daily allowance.

For the average daily allowance, the first staggering reduces the daily allowance by around 350 € per month and the second staggering by an additional 85 €, so that the total impact after the second staggering is on average around 435 € per month.

The exact effect of the staggering in euros depends on the amount of your daily allowance and the duration of your unemployment. We will also add information on the differentiation to our daily allowance calculator later.

You can calculate the effect of the staggering yourself by multiplying the amount of your daily allowance by the percentage of the staggering. The first stagger is 80%, so you can multiply your full amount by 0.8. The second stagger is 75%, so you can multiply your full amount by 0.75.

The reduced daily allowance is always at least equal to the basic daily allowance or, in the case of a participant in an employment promotion service, to the basic daily allowance plus the increase.

Age-related exemptions are abolished

The approved amendment to the law will remove age-based exceptions to unemployment benefit.

After the law change

• People aged 57 and over are no longer covered by the employment obligation
• The level of the daily allowance for a person aged 58 or over is no longer protected in the case of low-paid employment and unemployment, with the level of the daily allowance being recalculated
• People aged 60 and over can no longer meet the working condition by participating in an employment support service.

We will apply the changes when you can count work under the new euro-standardised model for the working condition from September 2024 onwards.

The employment obligation may arise no later than 1.9.2024.

Wage subsidized work no longer accumulates working condition

Following the adopted amendment to the law, wage subsidised work will no longer count towards the working condition.

Wage subsidised work will no longer count towards the working condition if it starts on or after 2.9.2024. According to the transitional provision, the working condition for wage subsidy work is 6 months if the wage subsidy work starts on 1.9.2024 at the latest.

By way of exception, wage subsidy work may continue to be eligible for the working condition if the wage subsidy is paid for the employment of a person that has a reduced capacity for work. However, this exception is rather strict, as the working condition will only be accumulated in such a situation after 10 months of payment of wage subsidies. Even then, the working condition is accumulated only for 75% of the working time.

Even if the wage subsidy work is no longer taken into account in the working condition, the wage subsidy will still extend the reference period, i.e. the period for which we can count the work towards the working condition.