UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE

Unemployment assistance is a state benefit in the sense of social assistance payable to the needy unemployed who have no entitlement to unemployment benefit because they have not fulfilled the qualifying period or who, although they meet the other eligibility criteria (Promotion of Employment Act §§ 134 ff.), have already exhausted their entitlement.

In contrast to unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance is financed not from contributions but by the Federal Government from general tax revenues. Notably, unemployment assistance is governed by the principle of subsidiarity when the unemployed person has at their disposal other sources of income or other subsistence entitlements in respect of their immediate family. Thus, any monetary income and assets of unemployed individuals are taken into account. Furthermore, the unemployed are obliged to remedy their state of need by first asserting all other viable subsistence entitlements.

Unemployment assistance currently amounts to 58 or 56 per cent. of the last monthly net pay.