Handling times of unemployment compensation applications are delayed for several weeks

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As a consequence of the ongoing recession, hundreds of claimants who are entitled to receive earnings-related daily allowance are sending their applications to unemployment funds every day.
      During the worst days, the Finnish Metalworkers’ Union has received as many as 1,400 new applications from members who have either been laid off or made redundant.
     
”The beginning of the year has been horrible, and there is no end in sight to the situation, as large numbers of applications from Rautaruukki, Metso, and Nokia are still pending”, says Maija-Leena Meriläinen, the head of the unemployment fund of the Metalworkers' Union.
      Even though the Union has taken on 13 extra staff to clear the backlog of applications at the Unemployment Fund, it will take about two months before the allowances can be paid to the unemployed. The normal processing time is two weeks.
     
At the Finnish Construction Trade Union, the handling time of daily allowances has also been prolonged to nearly six weeks, as of the 60,000 members of the unemployment fund of the Finnish Construction Trade Union, already one in four is jobless.
      ”In the period from December to February, the increase in unemployment applications was huge. In March the number may not have been equally high, but in April the number of unemployed construction workers will exceed 15,000”, predicts Seppo Niininen, the head of the unemployment fund of the Construction Trade Union.
     
For the claimants of daily allowances, such a long handling time means that they will have to get their livelihood from somewhere else. It could mean that they will have to resort to the maintenance subsidy paid by local social services.
      The General Unemployment Fund (YTK), an unemployment fund which is not related to any trade union, has also received a mass of new members, as people who are worried about ensuring their income in the future have joined the fund.
     
In Finland, an unemployed individual is entitled to certain unemployment benefits, including a basic daily allowance or a daily earnings-related allowance.
      To qualify for such allowances an employee has to meet specific conditions regarding his or her employment history.
      The basic allowance is EUR 25.63 per day. A person who belongs to an unemployment fund is entitled to a daily earnings-linked unemployment allowance, provided that he or she has been a member of the unemployment fund for 10 months and has worked for 43 weeks during the 28 months preceding unemployment.
      In general, unemployment allowance is paid for a maximum of 500 days.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  One in four construction workers facing unemployment (9.3.2009)

Links:
  The Finnish Metalworkers´ Union
  Finnish Construction Trade Union
  The Social Insurance Institution of Finland

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