The office of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy (TE Centre) currently stipulates a person’s work area as lying within an 80km journey of their residence, measured door-to door. The new rules will instead refer to a total daily commute taking under three hours.
It’s expected that the change in parameters will result in job seekers being expected to travel slightly further afield than at present, says the Ministry’s Senior Advisor Timo Meling.
“If the area has good transport connections and the daily work commute is not in total more than three hours, then it would be a condition of unemployment benefit to also be prepared to take work outside the 80km boundary,” says Meling.
According to him, it is difficult to estimate how many people will be affected by the new ruling, although he assumes that it will only really have an impact in areas with good transport links.
Emphasis on the needs of business
Services supervisor Jaana Hakkarainen of the Northern Savo TE Centre says that most young people are ready to leave for work to just about anywhere. Older adults with families and homes are more likely to be tied to their own communities.
“This year we have become more active in offering work to our clients,” says Hakkarainen. “I would say that in previous years we have been quite careful about offering jobs, especially those outside the area of work.”
Hakkarainen explains that previously it was assumed that people were quite motivated to apply for work independently and that they used online services to do so. However, she says that the employment services also wanted to better serve the companies that have challenges finding skilled labour. The result is that the service is becoming more proactive in finding work for the unemployed.
Fewer claims for mobility grants
If someone living on the labour market subsidy works in full-time employment outside their stipulated work region for between 2-4 months, they can claim travel allowance. Last year 930 people claimed the benefit.
People who necessarily move to another region to take up employment also qualify for support. A payment of up to 700 euros can be claimed to reimburse moving costs. 300 people out of work or facing redundancy claimed the relocation grant between January and April of this year, up from last year’s levels.
The majority of grants paid out relate to reimbursement for the cost of travelling to job interviews, however, the amount decreased significantly this year. About 4,000 interview jaunts were compensated in the first quarter – last year the figures were double in the same period, and throughout the whole of 2012 around 19,000 job seekers claimed the benefit.
Hakkarainen says that the mobility grant is applied for less frequently when the economic situation is worse. Another reason is probably that changes to the system came in at the end of last year.
“Travel cost compensation is now subject to tighter rules,” she says. “Now it’s only for the unemployed.”
Students seeking summer work no longer qualify for the hand-out, nor do those who are currently employed but facing the end of their fixed-term contracts.
