If unemployed persons do little jobs, from April they will only affect allowances when the wages have been paid
It will be easier for part-time and gig workers to manage their money matters. Unemployment security will only be reduced when you have been paid for your work.
Some changes to unemployment security, minimum retirement age goes up, unemployment insurance contributions go down and employees’ pension contributions go up. These are all changes coming in next year.
Just before the Christmas break the Parliament of Finland approved a number of changes to legislation which will also affect the incomes of PAM members.
Employees’ unemployment insurance contributions in 2019 are 1.5%. That is 0.4 percentage points less than 2018. Correspondingly, employees’ share of pension contributions goes up by 0.4 percentage points. For persons aged 17–52, the charge is 6.75% and for employees aged 53–62 it is 8.25%. Employees aged 63 and over pay 6.75%.
The minimum old-age retirement age goes up by 3 months from the start of the year. Persons born in 1956 can retire at the earliest aged 63 years and 6 months.
Unemployed jobseekers can study on an own-initiative, self-reported basis for a maximum of 6 months and get unemployment insurance for the period of their studies. This change comes into effect right at the start of the year. A jobseeker must be at least 25 years old and the studies must provide occupational skills or support business activity. The change also affects the conditions of the activation model: under certain conditions, a job-seeker’s own-initiative studies will in future be considered activity under the activation model.
Later in the spring a change will start to be applied by which minor employment will only affect unemployment benefits when the wages have been paid. So your allowances will be lower in the period when you are paid and not already in the period when the work is done. For many part-time or gig workers this will mean their income will be more regular. More information on this from the Federation of Unemployment Funds and later from PAM’s Unemployment Fund.
From the start of October 2019, pension assistance for the long-term unemployed will be extended to persons born before 1 September 1958 who have been unemployed almost continuously for five years. For a person to get pension assistance, they must have been entitled to labour market subsidy on 31 August 2018. In practice labour market subsidy turns into pension assistance at the level of the full guarantee pension, which you can get until you are 65.
From the start of 2019, employers must notify the wages they pay electronically in the incomes register. Unemployment funds will only become part of the system in 2020.
You can find a more comprehensive summary of the legislative changes in 2019 on SAK’s website in Finnish.