To be eligible for unemployment benefit, you need to meet the basic conditions of entitlement.
Moreover, the ground of your termination of employment has an influence on the day you may start to receive unemployment benefits.
Unpaid leave
For information about unemployment benefit eligibility regarding a person sent on unpaid leave due to the coronavirus, click here.
If you are staying on unpaid leave willingly, without justified reasons, you will only be able to receive unemployment benefits after 90 days since your departure on unpaid leave.
Important information! Those going on unpaid leave on their own initiative (even if the unpaid leave is taken for justified reasons) from 2.7.21 onwards - will not be eligible for unemployment benefits.
During the unpaid leave, the employer is not allowed to call your to perform any work whatsoever, even for few days only. Whether you returned to work, even for few days, unemployment benefits will not be paid to you for that month.
To learn more about unpaid leave, click here.
Dismissals
If your employer dismissed you and you reported as jobseeker to Employment Service, you will be entitled to unemployment benefits from the first day of your reporting.
Your employment contract expired
If your employment agreement with the employer expired, and you have reported to Employment Service as a job seeker, you may be entitled to unemployment benefits since the first days of reporting.
Voluntary resignation
If you have willingly stopped working, you may start to receive unemployment benefits only after 90 days have elapsed since the day of work stoppage.
Please note that if you stopped working willingly for justified reasons, you will be able to receive unemployment benefits from the first day of your reporting to Employment Service.
Instances of resignation for justified reasons:
- Significant worsening of employment conditions, or creation of circumstances on the workplace preventing you from continuing to work.
- You resigned because of your medical condition or that of a family member (son or daughter, parent, child, grandchild, siblings).
- Change in place of residence or place of work, when the distance between workplace and the new place of residence is above 60 km, or 40 km for the mother of a child under 7 years old.
- Resignation due to sexual harassment in the workplace.
If you have resigned for justified reasons, you have to attach to the claim all documents related to the ground of resignation.
Teacher in sabbatical leave (year of study)
A teacher spending a sabbatical year will not be entitled to unemployment benefit, since he is forbidden to work part time for more than third of regular weekly hours, thereby is unavailable to any job that may be proposed to him by the Employment Service.
Retirement
If you have retired from work before retirement age, at your employer's initiative or in the context of early pension incentives, you will be entitled to unemployment benefits from the first day of your reporting to Employment Service.
If you retired on your own free will, you will be regarded as a person willingly resigning from work and you will not be paid unemployment benefits in the first 90 days since the date of retirement, unless your retirement is based on a justified reason.
Please note that a woman who retires from work willingly after the age of 62, will not be paid unemployment benefits in the first 90 days since the date of retirement. However, if retirement is based on justified reasons, she will be entitled to unemployment benefits since the first day of her reporting to Employment Service.