Who can join as a member?

There are two YTK membership alternatives: a combined membership and a fund membership, subject to the following conditions:

• You are a wage earner as defined in unemployment security legislation.
  A wage earner is an employee who works in an employment relationship or in a public service employment relationship. You cannot join YTK as an entrepreneur. 

• You are employed at the time of joining.
  In other words, you cannot join when you are unemployed, laid off full-time, on an unpaid sick leave, on parental leave, or performing military service. If you are unemployed, you can join only with certain restrictions as a person returning to the Finnish labour market from abroad.

• You are under the age of 68.

• There is no minimum age for joining the fund in the rules. Under the Finnish Unemployment Security Act, unemployment benefits can only be paid to persons aged 17 and over. Moreover, employment that counts towards satisfying the working condition is only taken into account after a person’s 17th birthday, and there is therefore no real benefit to joining earlier.