The Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) is paying unemployment benefits to a total of 173,000 people.
The Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) has confirmed it has slashed the unemployment benefits of a total of 80,000 people as a consequence of the introduction of the activation model for unemployment security.
Kela on Thursday revealed that slightly over a half (52%) of unemployment benefit recipients will contrastively continue to receive their benefits in full after satisfying the activity criteria laid out in the much-discussed model in the first 65-day monitoring period ending in April.
A total of 173,000 people are currently receiving unemployment benefits from Kela.
Roughly 26,000 of those who maintained their eligibility for full unemployment benefits did so by reporting earnings through employment or self-employment, while the remaining 68,000 satisfied the criteria by participating in activities designed to improve their employment prospects. An additional 4,600 unemployment benefit recipients were exempt from the activity criteria.
Kela says it has gathered data on roughly 90 per cent of benefit recipients.
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health duly reminds in a press release that the statistics are still incomplete and that the final statistics will not be published until June. The situation, it adds, will be monitored closely.
Kela, meanwhile, points out that the introduction of the much-criticised model is still expected to result in an increase in the number of basic income allowance recipients.
“Kela’s data indicate that the activation model is set to increase social assistance costs. This possibility for supplementing the social assistance was taken into consideration already in the government proposal,” reads the press release from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
The activation model for unemployment security stipulates that unemployment benefit recipients who fail to satisfy the activity criteria will lose 4.65 per cent of their benefits for the next 65-day monitoring period.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT Photo: Emmi Korhonen – Lehtikuva Source: Uusi Suomi
