Who can receive an earnings-related allowance?

The earnings-related allowance is an unemployment benefit that unemployment funds pay to their members based on their previous earnings. You can receive an earnings-related allowance from your unemployment fund if

• you are a member of the unemployment fund,
• you are between 18 and 64 years old,
• you are fully or partially unemployed (e.g. working part-time or laid off),
• you have signed up as an unemployed job-seeker with the Employment and Economic Development Office (TE Office), and
• you have worked for at least 26 calendar weeks while being a member of the unemployment fund, i.e. you satisfy the employment requirement.

Persons under the age of 18 have been ineligible for an earnings-related allowance since 1 August 2021. This legislative amendment relates to the raising of the statutory minimum school-leaving age. Persons aged 17 years can nevertheless still qualify for an earnings-related allowance if

• they have completed compulsory education, or
• they have been exempted from finishing compulsory education under the Compulsory Education Act.

 

Membership requirement

The membership requirement is 26 weeks. This means that, to qualify for an earnings-related allowance, you must have been a member of your unemployment fund for at least 26 weeks.  

Employment requirement

You can apply for an earnings-related allowance if you satisfy the employment requirement while being a member of an unemployment fund. ‘Employment requirement’ means that you must have worked for a period of 26 calendar weeks. Every week during which you worked at least 18 hours counts towards the employment requirement. You can satisfy the employment requirement by working several isolated periods, as long as all these take place within the review period. You can read more about the employment requirement, the review period and special circumstances under Employment requirement.  

Are you under the age of 25 and without a vocational qualification?

The TE Office has set certain special conditions that young people must satisfy in order to qualify for an earnings-related allowance.  These conditions apply to you if you are under the age of 25 and have no vocational qualification. The conditions relate to, for example, an obligation to apply for a place on a training course. For more information, see the TE Services website.