Unemployment social insurance

Entitlement to the unemployment insurance benefit

Persons insured with unemployment social insurance, who are registered as unemployed at Employment Service and who have not been offered by Employment Service a suitable job or active labour market policy measures, shall be entitled to the unemployment insurance benefit if they:

1. prior to getting unemployed status acquired the unemployment insurance record not shorter than 12 months during the last 30 months;
2. have completed the mandatory initial military service or the alternative national defence service or have been discharged  from these services after having served at least half of the established time period. These unemployed shall be entitled to unemployment insurance benefit when they acquire unemployed status not later than within 6 calendar months after the discharge from the mandatory initial military service or the alternative national defence service.

Duration of paying the unemployment insurance benefit

The unemployment insurance benefit is paid for 9 months.

Amount of the unemployment insurance benefit

The monthly unemployment insurance benefit comprises a fixed and a variable component. The fixed component equals 23,27% of the Minimum monthly wage valid in the month for which the unemployment insurance benefit is paid.

The variable component is linked to the former insured income of the unemployed.

Insured income includes all incomes of an individual from which the unemployment insurance contributions were paid or had to be paid (including unemployment insurance and partial work benefits, sickness, maternity, paternity, and child care benefits and benefit for illness resulting from an occupational accident or an occupational disease).

The average monthly insured income is calculated taking into account the amount of the actual insured income of an unemployed for every month during the previous 30 months (including months with zero income) starting two months preceding  to the date of the unemployed status acquiring. 

The variable component is calculated as follows:

from the 1st to the 3rd months of payment it equals 38,79 % of the average monthly insured income;

from the 4th to the 6th months – 31,03 %;

from the 7th to the 9th months – 23,27 %.

The unemployment insurance benefit paid in each of the periods cannot exceed 58,18% of the average monthly wage (valid two quarters preceding  to the date of the unemployed status acquiring)  in the national economy (which is published every quarter by the State data agency).

Partial work benefit

The new Labour Code provides a new definition – partial work, which is used when employer cannot provide work for employees and there are assumptions of redundancy of group of employees’ due to the important economic reasons, objectively present in the given territory or in the sector of economic activity and are recognized as such by the Government. Working hours in the partial work are shorter by up to half of employee’s normal working hours. Salary, which is lower due to the shortened working hours, is compensated from special fund, and paid as partial work benefit.

Eligibility conditions of the partial work benefit

Persons insured with unemployment social insurance, for whom the employer determinates partial work in accordance with the procedure established by law, shall be entitled partial work benefit.

Duration of the partial work benefit

Partial work benefit may be paid for up to 3 months.

Calculation and amount of partial work benefit

The amount of partial work benefit is calculated as part of the unemployment social insurance benefit calculated by the amount of the percentage of the reduced working time, but it can not be more than 50 percent of the unemployment insurance benefit.

The partial work benefit comprises a fixed and a variable component.

The fixed component equals to 23,27 % of the established Minimum monthly wage valid in the month for which the partial work benefit is paid. 

The variable component is linked to the former insured income of the person.

The average monthly insured income is calculated taking into account the amount of the actual insured income of an employee from the employer who applied for partial work for every month during the previous 30 months starting two months preceding to the start of partial work. The variable component is calculated as 38,79 % calculated previously mentioned order.