On this page, you will find instructions on how to apply for allowance if you are temporarily laid off in full or in part.
Applying for earnings-related allowance
- Register as a jobseeker at the TE Office
- Do this on your first day of lay-off at the latest. Earnings-related allowance can only be paid for periods during which you are registered as an unemployed jobseeker.
- Inform the TE Office of all business activities, including forestry or agriculture, and possible studies. You also need to notify the TE Office if you receive informal care support or family care fees.
- You can register as a jobseeker using the E-Services on TE Office’s website.
- Fill in an application for earnings-related allowance
- You can submit your application via Ewertti or regular mail. Applications submitted via eWertti are processed faster than those sent via regular mail.
- If it has been less than six months since you last received allowance, you can use eWertti’s editable follow-up application. In other cases, fill in an earnings-related allowance application.
- You have to apply for the allowance within 3 months of the day of which you wish it to be paid.
Full-time lay-off
- Submit your application after two weeks of lay-off at the earliest, the last day of your application being Sunday.
- A lay-off period from Wednesday to Tuesday is not considered full-time, even though the duration in total is one week. This is a case of two shortened working weeks.
- If you work during your lay-off period, either for your permanent employer or another employer, list all working days and hours in your application.
Lay-off: Shortened working week/day
- Submit your application after two weeks of lay-off at the earliest, the last day of your application being Sunday.
- we will inform you in case we need an application for a longer period
- If you receive your salary once a calendar month, apply for allowance respectively. If the calendar month ends in the middle of the week, submit all working information for this week. You can do this via eWertti, for example.
- If the last day of the month is Wednesday, list all working days and hours for the rest of the week (Thursday to Sunday) as well. This is because, during lay-off, working hours are reviewed by calendar week.
Fill in your application with care and make sure the application period is sufficiently long. Your application will not be processed any faster if the application period is too short.
- Submit all necessary attachments
Salary information
The unemployment fund receives salary information via the Incomes Register. We use this information to process applications for earnings-related allowance whenever possible.
If we do not receive all necessary information via the Incomes Register in order to process an application, we will request further attachments from payroll accountants or applicants themselves. An attached pay certificate may speed up the processing of an application and save us the time of waiting for further information. Decisions are made based on information received via the Incomes Register whenever possible. Payslips or pay certificates attached to an application are used only when this information is inadequate.
Additional attachments
- A copy of your notice of lay-off
- A copy of your employment contract. If you are laid off from a part-time job, or if you do part-time work for another employer during lay-off, submit a copy of your employment contract.
- A report of all working days and hours for the whole calendar week, if the duration of your lay-off is shorter than one calendar week.
If you claim other benefits or have any business activities, please submit the following attachments
- A copy of the decision on other social benefits, e.g. child home care allowance
- A copy of your latest confirmed tax decision, if you have part-time business activities. Remember to inform the TE Office of such activities.
You can submit attachments to your application via Ewertti or regular mail.
- Check the status of your application
- Applications are processed in the order in which they arrive
- You can easily check the status of your application in Ewertti
- Check the general processing status of applications at the bottom of the page
In case we need further information to process your application, we will try to contact you by telephone (010 190 300). If we do not reach you, we will send you a letter or message via eWertti.
Submitting a follow-up application
After your first application, continue applying for earnings-related allowance in periods of either four calendar weeks (Monday to Sunday) or one calendar month (first to last day of the month).
If you are laid off in full, you can submit your application via Ewertti. Use a non-editable follow-up application in case you are laid off in full. This way, your allowance should in most cases appear on your bank account in a few days, if there have been no changes to your situation.
We do our best to process follow-up applications sent via regular mail and editable follow-up applications sent vie eWertti within one week.