Instructions to laid off employees

A laid off person must personally register as a job-seeker at the employment and economic development office if not on a group lay-off. The person cannot register retroactively but must register on the first lay-off day at the latest. When registering at the employment and economic development office, the person must show a lay-off notice that indicates among other things the date on which the lay-off starts.

If you have been laid off, make sure that you have done the following:

1) Registration at the employment and economic development office

Make sure that you are a registered job-seeker during the lay-off period.

Group lay-off

A group lay-off is possible when at least ten persons are laid off and the lay-offs are for a fixed period of time. Even if the lay-offs then start and end at very different times, it may be more logical to register at the employment and economic development office personally - not as part of the group lay-off procedure - and take the lay-off notice there.
When using the group lay-off procedure, the employer must inform the employment and economic development office of the lay-off. The notice registers you as a job-seeker so you do not have to register at the employment and economic development office separately. In addition, the employer must fill in a control notice form, by means of which information on the laid off persons and lay-off times is submitted to the unemployment fund directly.
The employer must submit the control notice form to the unemployment fund after each month or after every four weeks. If the lay-off has been implemented by doing a shorter working week due to the lay-off, the control notice form should be submitted after every four weeks.

         Send the control notice form to the address
         Yleinen työttömyyskassa YTK
         PL 100
         32201 LOIMAA
         Fax 02-762 4917

Personal registration at the employment office

If a group lay-off procedure is not possible, you must register as a job-seeker at the employment and economic development office personally. In that case the process of qualifying for unemployment benefit will begin when you personally visit the employment and economic development office. An unemployment allowance for the lay-off period can be paid from the date on which you registered at the office at the earliest.

2) Applying

Earnings-related daily allowance is applied for with a specific application form. You can obtain an application form from your local employment office, or print it out at Forms. Please fill in the form carefully and send it to Yleinen työttömyyskassa YTK, Teollisuuskatu 4, 32200 LOIMAA. Benefits can also be applied through electronic communication. Your user ID for electronic communication is your membership number and the password when logging in for the first time is your postal code.

Earnings-related daily allowance is always applied for retroactively. The application period must be at least four weeks, a month, or a calendar month. However, the first application can be sent in after two weeks. Please send in the next application after four weeks have gone by since your first application.

Example

You become completely unemployed on 2 May, 2007. You apply for the allowance for the first time, and you can fill in the application for two weeks, that is, for the period 2.5.2007 - 15.5.2007. Since the allowance cannot be applied for beforehand, the earliest possible day to send in the application is on 16 May, 2007. The following application period is four weeks, a month, or a calendar month. Thus, your next application can be either for the period 16.5.2007 - 12.6.2007, or 16.5.2007 - 15.6.2007.

The allowance must be applied for within three months of the date from which payment is sought. Please remember to date and sign the application. It is crucial to send in the application on time, even if some enclosures were still missing. The application becomes pending on the day the fund receives the application form. You can send in the missing enclosures when you receive them.

3) Enclosures

Salary certificate or salary calculation

If this is your first application for daily allowance and you have not received basic daily allowance from the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (KELA), or earnings-related daily allowance from another fund since 1 January, 1997, the amount of your allowance will be calculated based on the salary for at least 43 calendar weeks preceding the start of your unemployment. In this case, we follow the 'initial rule'.

If you have received allowance since 1 January, 1997, the amount of your allowance will be based on the salary of at least 34 calendar weeks preceding the start of your unemployment. Here, we follow the 'return rule'.

In case you have not been working continuously for the last 43/34 calendar weeks, you must deliver a salary certificate from as many employers as needed to total the required 43 or 34 calendar weeks of work. Please notice that the employment condition must be met within the observation period of 28 or 24 months.

Salaries are given on the basis of actual earnings, which means that the period in question must not contain salaries for jobs carried out during other times, even if the salary was paid out during the period of the salary certificate. Possible productivity bonuses, commissions or other similar sums must also be given on the basis of actual earnings. If the period in question includes unpaid sums, they must be noted separately in the certificate. Also include information on the time of payment.

Any unpaid absences must be noted in the salary certificate. Such absences may include periods of illness, study, or parental leave, among others.

Furthermore, it is important that the salary certificate includes detailed information on holiday compensation and holiday bonus. Holiday compensation is compensation for annual holiday left untaken at the end of an employment relationship. Holiday bonus, then, is generally a payment made according to the collective agreement when an employee returns to work after an annual holiday.

The salary certificate must contain the name and telephone number of the contact person of the employer. Please notice that the employer or the employer's contact person must sign the certificate. The fund does not generally accept a certificate provided by the claimant him/herself or by the claimant's close relative. Therefore, the certificate should be signed by 'a third party', such as an accounting agency. If the signatory and the claimant share the same last name, it is best to state if they are not related.

Employment contract

Please deliver the fund your employment contract, if your fixed-term employment relationship has ended, or if you have been laid-off. If the contract is needed in other instances, the fund will send a request. In case you have drawn a contract only by word of mouth, must a written clarification from the employer on the general terms of the employment relationship be delivered to the fund.

Notice of lay-off

Under the Employment Contracts Act, an employee must be notified on a lay-off in person by the employer no later than 14 days before the start of a lay-off. The notice can be delivered personally, or by post or e-mail. The notice must include grounds for the lay-off as well as the starting date and duration or estimated duration of the lay-off period. In addition, in order to clarify the period of notice for the lay-off, the fund requires information on when the notice of lay-off has been given.

Tax deduction card

The tax information of existing members is obtained directly from the tax office. The original tax card is required with the allowance application of new members who have joined the fund half-way through the year. In order to ensure the correct tax percentage, we recommend that you ask tax authorities for an alternated tax card for social and other benefits. Please send this original tax card to the fund.

Reporting of other income and benefits

If you have supplementary income or you work part-time during your unemployment, please enclose a certificate of your salary with your application.

If you are a part-time entrepreneur or have farming income, a copy of the latest verified tax statement should be sent to the fund. In case your entrepreneurial activities have only begun, information on the preliminary taxation is needed. For further information on the matter, please see Special Cases.

If you receive social benefits, a copy of the latest decision should be delivered to the fund. Please notify the fund each time a pension is applied for or an appeal is launched. In case you receive or your family receives child home care allowance for a child under the age of three, please enclose, in addition to the decision, the information on whether your spouse is taking care of the child.

List of weekly working hours

As part of your employment condition and basis of earnings-related daily allowance, only calendar weeks with at least 18 hours of work, or 80 hours within four calendar weeks with work during each week, can be counted. Please notice that in some branches (for example education and artistic work), also calendar weeks with less than 18 hours of work can be taken into consideration.

If you have had part-time employment for two or more employers, please deliver the fund a list of your weekly working hours separately from each employer. Furthermore, a list of weekly working hours must be sent in case there has been variation in your weekly working hours, so that during some weeks, you have had more than 18 hours of work, and during others, less.

Child support supplement

The details of your own children are transferred to the fund automatically from the Population Register Centre. In case you have an agreement on the care and support of the children, please send a copy of an agreement confirmed by the social welfare board or of a court order.

Data on period preceding the unemployment

If you were on maternity or care leave during the period preceding your unemployment and you also had earned income during that period, please attach the details of your employment and a salary certificate from your employer to the application.