Who can join?

Unemployment Fund Aaria is a universal wage-earners’ unemployment fund. We accept members from all industries. When you are a member of a wage-earners’ unemployment fund, the amount of your earnings-related allowance and your alternation allowance depends on your wages. You can join Unemployment Fund Aaria if you are

• under 68 years old,
• not a full-time entrepreneur, and
• employed on the day you join.

‘Employed’ in this context means having a permanent or a fixed-term employment contract for full-time or part-time work. Please note that you cannot join an unemployment fund while you are on unpaid leave, such as on child care leave, on study leave, laid off or on unpaid sick leave. Many of our members are members of Unemployment Fund Aaria through their trade union. Being a member of a union is not a condition for joining un unemployment fund, however.  

Switching between unemployment funds

You can only be a member of one unemployment fund at a time. If you switch to us from another unemployment fund, the time you accumulated towards the membership requirement and the employment requirement with your previous unemployment fund can be transferred to Unemployment Fund Aaria if the gap between the two memberships is no longer than one month. Please note that if you were expelled from your previous unemployment fund, we cannot give you credit for your having previously satisfied the membership and employment requirement. You can authorise us to cancel your membership with your current unemployment fund so that you can switch to us. If you want us to do that, please mention it in your membership application. Alternatively, you can tell your current unemployment fund about wanting to cancel your membership yourself. We recommend that you wait for confirmation of having been accepted as a member of Unemployment Fund Aaria before you submit your notice of cancellation to your current unemployment fund.