Salary paid for more than one month contrary to the normal pay period

If you are on or after 2 September 2024, during a calendar month paid salary for a period longer than one month (contrary to the normal pay period), the salary will be spread over as many months as the number of months for which it was paid. In order for the salary to be divided, the work must also have been carried out after 1 September 2024.

Example. 
You worked from 1 October to 30 November and your salary of €4,000 for the whole period of employment was paid on 30 November. The €4,000 salary is divided between October and November. The divided salary of €2,000 per month exceeds the threshold of €930 for the work requirement, so you accumulate two months of work requirement. 

Performance-related pay paid for a period of more than one month

If you are paid a performance-related bonus or salary (e.g. performance-related bonus, bonus, commission) for a period of more than one month, the bonus or salary is allocated to the calendar months during which it was earned.

Late payment of salary due to the employer's fault  

If your employer on or after 2 September 2024 pays you late wages, for example, because of an error in the payroll system, insolvency or some other reason, the wages will be allocated to the months in which they would have normally been paid (had they not been late). This exemption applies where the work is carried out after 1 September 2024. 

Period-based work 

If your work is period-based (jaksotyö), all weeks that are included in a three- or six-week period, during which the average working time is at least 18 hours per week, can be counted as working weeks. This exemption is valid only until 1 September 2024, after which the accumulation of work requirement is based only on salaries paid. 

In period-based work (jaksotyö) the working hours vary from day to day but are arranged so that in a three-week or a six-week period the total hours worked correspond to the working hours agreed in the employment contract. If you work is period-based, all weeks that are included in a three- or six-week period during which the average working time is at least 18 hours per week, can be counted as working weeks.

Reduced income due to an illness

The work requirement does not include  

• salary for work you did while receiving partial disability allowance
• reduced salary paid to you due to a long illness (e.g. 2/3 of your salary). 

Pay subsidy

If the subsidized work has started before 2.9.2024, 75% of the employment will accumulate the work requirement and only 6 months are required to fulfill the work requirement. If you have been employed under the employment of older people obligation, i.e. you are at least 60 years old when you start working, the full length of subsidized employment will continue to accumulate the work requirement. The employment obligation must have arisen by 1 September 2024 at the latest.  

In future, work for which your employer receives a pay subsidy will only count towards the work requirement in rare circumstances. Subsidized work that starts on or after 2 September 2024 will only count towards the work requirement if the pay subsidy is granted to employ a disabled person or a long-term unemployed person aged over 60. The work requirement will only start to accumulate after 10 months of work and even then, only 75% of the paid months will accumulate the work requirement. In order to fulfill the work requirement through subsidized work, you must therefore work for at least 26 months on subsidized work (first 10 months for the subsidized work to start accumulating the work requirement and then 16 months, of which 75%, i.e. 12 months, is enough to accrue the work requirement). A further condition is that the employment relationship continues continuously.  

If you work in more than one subsidized employment relationship, the work requirement is calculated on a per-employment relationship basis. For each pay subsidy employment relationship organised to employ a disabled person or a long-term unemployed person over 60 years of age, 75% of the working time is taken into account for the calculation of the employment condition after the first 10 months of pay subsidy employment. The rounding down is done for each employment relationship to the nearest full month of employment.

For the period for which the subsidized employment does not accumulate the work requirement, it extends the 28-month reference period of the work requirement.  

Working time bank

Wages or compensation based on time transferred to a working time bank are not counted towards the work requirement. Instead, if you have taken time off based on time saved in a working time bank, the free-time is icluded in the work requirement in the same way as paid vacation.

Working as a teacher

Working in a family business

If you work in a business owned by your spouse, but you do not own any part of the business yourself, you are considered to be an empoyee (and not a entrepreneur). However, until 1 September 2024, the work requirement will be fulfilled in your case only after 52 weeks of work (instead of the usual 26 weeks). The normal 26 weeks work requirement and the 52 weeks work requirement for work done in a family business, cannot be added together. The work requirement must threfore be met either in normal paid employment (26 weeks) or working in a family business (52 weeks).

From 2 September 2024 onwards, work done in a family business will accumulate the work requirement in the same way as other paid employment. However, you cannot combine work done in a family business with other paid employment until the 12-month work requirement has been fully met from the period after 1 September 2024. Before this, the entire employment condition must be fulfilled either in regular paid work or within a family business. 

You may lose the right to allowance you acquired working as employee in the following situations:

• You work as a full-time entrepreneur for more than 18 months.
• You are out of the labour market (i.e. not employed or registered as
  a job-seeker with the TE office) for more than six months without an
  acceptable reason.
• When you change from unemployment fund to another, there is a break of more than a month between the memberships of the old and the new fund (during which time you are not a member of either fund).
• You are dismissed from unemployment funds membership (e.g., due to unpaid membership fees).

In the above-mentioned cases, you will regain the right to earnings-related unemployment allowance only after fulfilling a new 12-month work requirement. 

When you receive unemployment benefits, the fund monitors the accumulation of your work requirement. Until 1 September 2024, each calendar week in which you have worked at least 18 hours will contribute towards the new work requirement. From 2 September 2024 onwards, each calendar month in which you have earned at least 930 euros will contribute towards the new work requirement. The work requirement will also be accumulated by two calendar months during which you have earned between 465 and 929,99 euros per month.

When, after becoming unemployed, you fulfill the work requirement again within the 28-month review period, the calculation of the 300 / 400 / 500-day maximum payment period for earnings-related unemployment allowance will always restart. 

Read more about the maximum payment period.