There have been many amendments to the Unemployment Security Act during the pandemic. Most of these amendments are no longer in force. We have put together a table of the amendments and exceptions to unemployment security.

The Finnish Government’s Ministerial COVID-19 Working Group has decided to reintroduce the temporary amendment to the Unemployment Security Act to end the use of the waiting period partly retroactively from 1 January 2022 to 28 February 2022. Similarly, a temporary amendment to the Unemployment Security Act regarding the right of self-employed persons to unemployment security will be readopted for the period from 1 January 2022 to 28 February 2022, making self-employed persons entitled to labour market support under certain conditions, even in cases where the person has not completely stopped their business activities. 

Both of these amendments have already been in force in the past. The implementation of the waiting period amendment ended on 31 December 2020, and the amendment on the labour market support of self-employed persons expired on 30 November 2021. Both of these amendments are now to be readopted as soon as possible and partly retroactively. What this means in practice is that if we did not pay you earnings-related daily allowance in the beginning of the year due to a waiting period, we could now make an additional payment to you to cover that waiting period.

The Government has not yet submitted a proposal to the Parliament on the matter, and the Parliament has not approved it. We will keep you posted on what happens.