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Services to promote employment

Public employment services secure the availability of skilled labour and jobseekers’ opportunities to find work, and promote the creation of new business activities, the operating conditions of companies and the quality of working life.

The employment authority is responsible for organising employment services. As part of this work, the employment authority can arrange various services to promote employment. Services promoting employment affect your eligibility to unemployment benefits and, in some cases, the amount of your earnings-related daily allowance.

The employment authorities also offer services outside the task of promoting employment. For example, the normal jobseeker service process, in which you register as a jobseeker, participate in an initial interview and draw up an employment plan, is not a service that promotes employment.

Services promoting employment refer to

  • job search coaching
  • career coaching
  • labour market training
  • jobseekers’ self-motivated studies funded trough the unemployment benefit
  • training trials
  • work try-outs
  • rehabilitative work activities

Earnings-related daily allowance is paid for while you use employment promoting services

We may pay you earnings-related daily allowance to which you would be entitled if you were unemployed for the duration of using services promoting employment. This means that we check all relevant criteria and restrictions for the payment of earnings-related unemployment allowance as usual.

If you have agreed the service with the employment office and it is part of your employment plan, we can pay you an increased daily allowance.

However, we may, in exceptional circumstances, pay earnings-related unemployment allowance for the duration of using services promoting employment, even if you were not entitled to earnings-related daily allowance at the start of the service, if this is due to

  • days of non-compensation, or suspension period
  • the obligation to work
  • a restriction related to vocational training, or
  • waiting period

Nonattendance to services promoting employment

You are not entitled to earnings-related daily allowance during job search coaching, career coaching, trials or rehabilitative work activities for the days on which you do not participate in the service, unless the nonattendance is due to

  • incapacity for work
  • for a maximum of four working days at a time due to illness of a child under 10 years of age
  • a job interview or other comparable reason related to employment, or
  • a public duty

Exceptional application of the Unemployment Security Act after the start of using services promoting employment

If you have refused an offer of work before the start of a service promoting employment and the uncompensated period begins after the start of using the services, we may exceptionally pay you earnings-related daily allowance without a possible suspension period.

During labour market training and self-motivated studies, you will not be subject to restrictions on the payment of earnings-related daily allowance on account of attending to full-time studies. While using the services, you are also not subject to sanctions for resigning from work or refusing to work in the case of work specifically offered by the employer.

During labour market training and self-motivated studies, we will not recalculate the salary on which your earnings-related daily allowance is based, even if you meet the employment requirement. In addition, the calculation of the maximum daily allowance period does not restart in the middle of using the service. We will only recalculate the basic salary after the use of the service has ended. At the same time, your maximum payment period will restart from the beginning. In practice, this means that your right to earnings-related daily allowance may end in the middle of such a service. In that case, you will be transferred to Kela’s basic social security.

If you participate in labour market training, we can exceptionally pay you earnings-related unemployment allowance for the duration of the training, even if you are a full-time entrepreneur. Similarly, we can also pay the allowance if you are at imminent risk of unemployment even if you are not unemployed or temporarily laid off during your participation in labour market training.

If labour market training is delivered in separate modules so that the training periods are not continuously linked on after another, you are not considered to be in training during the periods between training periods.

Reimbursement of expenses

If you are receiving earnings-related daily allowance, you are also entitled to reimbursement of travel and other expenses incurred in attending an employment support service. If you are not entitled to an earnings-related daily allowance, you are not entitled to an expense allowance.

If you are studying on your own initiative, we cannot pay you an allowance for the duration of your studies unless they are on your own initiative within the meaning of the Integration Act.

If you take part in rehabilitative work activities, we can pay you an expense allowance of 9 € for the days of participation according to the plan.

Amount of expenses reimbursed

We can pay you an expense allowance of 9 euros per day. We can pay you an expense allowance of 18 euros per day if

  • you participate in a service organised outside your employment area
  • you participate in a service organised outside your municipality of residence in your employment area and you incur accommodation costs as a result of participating in the service

By participating in labour market training abroad, you are entitled to 50% of the daily allowance paid to civil servants as reimbursement of travel expenses for work trips in the country concerned as reimbursement of accommodation and other costs incurred during the training.

By participating in labour market training organised by the Arctic Vocational Foundation, we can pay you an expense allowance of 16.82 euros per day. Accommodation for jobseekers participating in labour market training organised by the Arctic Vocational Foundation is free of charge.

Number of days reimbursed

We reimburse expenses for a maximum of five days per calendar week. If you participate in labour market training abroad, we can pay reimbursement of expenses for a maximum of seven days per calendar week.

For the duration of job search coaching, career coaching and try-outs, we only pay reimbursement of expenses for the days on which the service is organised and on which you participate in the service.

Restrictions and withdrawal of reimbursement of expenses

We do not pay expense allowances for periods of leave for labour market training or for self-study under the Integration Act. However, we can also pay an expense allowance for a period of leave during which you are participating in work-based learning or training as part of your training.

We will stop paying the expense allowance from the day you stop the service. We will also stop paying the expense allowance if you have decided to stop the service.

Your right to reimbursement of expenses depends on your entitlement to an earnings-related daily allowance. If you do not receive income support, you will not receive an expense allowance.