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Before we can pay you adjusted daily allowance, we will check the general conditions and any restrictions. The conditions and restrictions of the adjusted earnings-related daily allowance are the same as those of the earnings-related daily allowance paid to the wholly unemployed person. In addition, the adjusted earnings-related daily allowance has a few limitations of its own.  

Restrictions on adjusted earnings-related daily allowance

  • If your working hours exceed 80% of the working hours of a full-time employee, we cannot pay adjusted earnings-related daily allowance. This is because it is not a part-time job defined by the unemployment security act.
  • We cannot pay you adjusted earnings-related daily allowance if your part-time work is based on a reduction in working hours on your own initiative.
  • If you are paid annual holiday pay based on full-time work during part-time work, we cannot pay you adjusted earnings-related daily allowance at the same time.
  • The amount of the adjusted daily allowance has an upper limit. This maximum amount depends on what your income level was before unemployment. If you earn a lot, no adjusted earnings-related daily allowance remains to be paid. The purpose of this rule is to ensure that full-time work is always more economically viable than a combination of unemployment and part-time work.

Working time limit

When we arrange for you to receive adjusted daily allowance, we will check whether the limit of hours worked is exceeded during the application period. We will compare the maximum number of hours worked by a full-time worker with the number of hours for which you have been paid.

We cannot pay daily allowance if you have been paid for more than 80% of the maximum working time for a full-time worker on a payday that falls within the application period.

We also include holiday pay for part-time work in the number of hours worked. We divide the holiday pay by your hourly wage and calculate how many hours the holiday pay corresponds to. The holiday pay can therefore cause the working time limit to be exceeded, even if the actual hours worked are below the limit.

Maximum working time

The maximum working time for a full-time worker depends on the collective agreement applicable to your job. If there is no collective agreement, we use the regular working hours defined in the Working Hours Act, which is 8 hours per day.

In most cases, the maximum working time for a full-time worker is 7,5 to 8 hours per day. According to the law, this maximum daily working time is converted into a maximum monthly working time by applying a coefficient of 21,5. The multiplier is the same regardless of the actual number of working days in a month.

Depending on the sector, the maximum working time per month is around 161 to 172 hours. When we calculate 80% of the maximum, we multiply the maximum working time per month by 0,8. Thus, the working time limit for the adjusted daily allowance is, depending on the sector, about 128 to 137 hours per month.

If the application period is four weeks (Mon-Sun) instead of a month, we use a factor of 20 to calculate the maximum working time.

Accounting for working hours

The pay dates that fall within the application period determine which hours are taken into account in the working time calculation.

If you are paid earnings during the adjustment period for a longer earning period than one month, and if this differs from the normal pay period, we will divide the earnings and the working time on which the pay is based into the pay period and the number of months following the pay period equal to the number of months for which the earnings have been paid.

If you have more than one part-time job at the same time, we will add up the hours of work on which the wages paid during the same period of adjustment are based. If the maximum working hours for a full-time worker in the sector are the same for all the jobs covered by the adjustment, we will compare the total hours worked with this. If the maximum working hours differ, we calculate separately the percentage of each maximum working hour you worked. The combined percentage must not exceed 80%.

Holiday affects the adjusted daily allowance

if you work part-time, your holiday may prevent you from receiving daily allowance in full or reduce the amount of daily allowance you receive. The effect depends on whether the holiday pay is based on full-time or part-time work.

  1. Annual holiday pay: If you receive holiday pay based on full-time work during unemployment, we cannot pay you earnings-related daily allowance for the same period.

    If the right to annual leave is based on part-time work, the holiday pay does not prevent us from paying you earnings-related daily allowance. We will take the salary of the annual holiday period into account in mediation when the annual holiday salary is paid to you. In other words, the annual holiday pay based on part-time work reduces the earnings-related daily allowance we pay you when the holiday pay is paid. Thus, the effect does not depend on when you take a holiday.
  2. Holiday bonus: Holiday bonus based on full-time work do not affect the adjusted earnings-related daily allowance.

    On the other hand, the holiday bonus based on part-time work pay are taken into account as the income from the period of adjustment of the payment period, regardless of the period of time during which you have earned the holiday or when you have taken the holiday.
  3. Holiday compensation: Holiday compensation based on full-time work lasting more than two weeks prevents us from paying earnings-related daily allowance for the same period if the employment relationship has ended on or after 1.1.2024.

    The holiday compensation based on part-time work or full-time work lasting less than two weeks is taken into account in mediation as income at the time of payment. Such holiday compensations reduce the amount of earnings-related daily allowance paid to you, regardless of the period for which they have been earned.