Euroisation of the working condition

Last updated 12.03.2024

From 2.9.2024, we will apply a change in the law that will make the working condition of the earnings-related pension start to accumulate according to the euros paid. The euroised working condition means that we will count calendar months during which you have been paid at least 930 € as part of your working condition. 12 such months are required to meet the working condition.

What will change?

1. The main change is that you will have to work longer to collect the daily allowance. Before the change in the law, 6 months were sufficient to get the right to a daily allowance; after the change in the law, 12 months will be required.
2. As a rule, the amount of the earnings-related allowance will not be affected much.
3. With very low incomes, you may not be able to collect the working condition, even if you worked enough hours before.
4. If your income is sufficient, you may be able to collect working condition for unevenly distributed work in situations where you could not do so before.
5. If your income is high, you can collect working conditions with fewer hours than before.
6. Unlike in the past, we will count the work towards the working condition on a pay basis, i.e. it will be allocated to the month in which the salary was paid, regardless of when the work was done.
7. Claims for income-related daily allowance are not affected by the change.

Accumulation of the working condition

Under the euroised working condition, a full month of working time is accumulated when you are paid at least 930 € in a calendar month. You will reach the full working condition when you have accumulated a total of at least 12 full months of working time within a 28-month reference period.

You can also accumulate half a month of working condition, so that you have a total of at least 12 full months of working condition within the 28-month reference period. A half month of working condition is accumulated if you are paid between 465 € and 929 €.

We can only count earnings that are at least equal to the minimum wage according to the collective agreement or the Labour Contract Act. You must also have paid all statutory contributions and taxes. It is therefore possible that your salary exceeds 930 € per month, but has been below the minimum wage in the collective agreement, in which case the working condition will not be accrued even if you exceed the euro threshold.

Membership condition

As the length of the working condition, so does the membership condition. After the change, the earliest you will be eligible for the daily allowance is when you have been a member for at least 12 months.

We will apply the new membership condition when you move to the new 12-month working condition. From 2.9.2024, when we can count half a month or one full month as part of your working condition, the membership condition will change to 12 months.

The membership condition also means that you can only collect the working condition for unemployment benefit as a member of an unemployment fund. However, all you need to do is join YTK during the month in which the pay that counts towards the working condition is paid to you.

Transition to the new working condition

From 2.9.2024, you will meet your working condition if you have a total of 12 months of working condition converted or accumulated from 2.9.2024 in a 28-month reference period. This means that you do not have to have accrued the full working condition either before 2.9.2024 or after 2.9.2024, but you can choose a combination.

Old working condition

If the current 26 calendar week working condition is met by Sunday 1.9.2024, we will apply the old law, i.e. we will check whether you have worked at least 18 hours in 26 calendar weeks over a 28-month period. In this case, your full working condition will be accumulated under the old law.

New working condition

When you start to accumulate a completely new working condition from 2.9.2024, we will apply the full euroisation rules, i.e. we will check whether you have a total of 12 months of qualifying pay over a 28-month reference period. In this case, your full length of service will be calculated according to the new law.

Combination of old and new working conditions

During the transition period, it is possible that your working condition will be a combination of the old and the new. We do this by converting the calendar weeks you have accumulated for your working condition into months under the new law. So if you have not met the working condition in full when the new law comes into force, we will transfer the working condition you have already accumulated, converted to reflect the new working condition.

We will convert your previously accumulated working condition so that 1-2 weeks of working condition correspond to one half month of working condition and 3-4 weeks of working condition correspond to one full month of working condition.

Wage subsidies

From 2.9.2024, we will no longer be able to count wage subsidized work as part of the working condition. This means that wage subsidized work does not count towards the working condition if the wage subsidized work starts on or after 2.9.2024. If the paid work starts before 2.9.2024, it will count towards the working condition under the old law for the entire duration, i.e. also for the part of the period of wage subsidized work that continues after 1.9.2024.

Even after the change in the law, wage subsidy work may, exceptionally, still count towards the working condition if wage subsidy is paid for the employment of a person with reduced capacity for work. However, this exception is rather strict, as the working condition would only be accumulated after 10 months of payment of wage subsidy in such a situation. Even after that, the working time condition would only apply for 75% of the working time.

Even though we will no longer count wage subsidy work towards the working condition from next autumn, it will extend the reference period, i.e. the period for which we can count the work towards the working condition at all.