Short-term studies with unemployment benefit

When you are a customer of employment services, you must notify the employment services of the following studies

1. Completing a Bachelor's or Master's degree in a university of applied sciences,
2. Completing a Bachelor's or Master's degree in a university,
3. Completing a vocational upper secondary qualification or a module from a vocational qualification,
4. Completing a preparatory training for work and independent living,
5. Comprehensive school and upper secondary school studies,
6. Preparatory education for an upper secondary qualification (TUVA education),
7. Studies at an open university and an open university of applied sciences,
8. Postgraduate studies at a university (licensate and doctoral studies),
9. Completing a further or specialist vocational qualification or module,
10. Studies at a folk high school or a physical education training centre and
11. Other full-time studies providing professional skills with a duration of at least four days. Full-time studies refer to studies organised at least six hours a day.

If you are planning to start studying, please contact the employment services well in advance. Do not report short-term studies by submitting a change report in the JobMarket E-services online service. Instead, contact the employment services before starting the studies either by leaving a contact request or calling the general advisory service for private customers.

When necessary, the employment services will investigate your studies and submit a statement to the payer of the unemployment security, i.e. Kela or the unemployment fund.

You must meet certain conditions to be eligible for unemployment security when studying.

• You are registered as a jobseeker with the employment services.
• You are over the age of 25.
• The total duration of your studies is a maximum of six months.
• The studies will provide you with professional skills or promote your business plans.

If the total duration of your studies is over six months, they are not considered short-term. In this case, you should find out whether you are entitled to independent studies or part-time studies supported with unemployment benefit.

If you wish to continue studies that have previously been interrupted, at least one year must have passed since the interruption started. However, the year-long interruption is not required if you have started your studies during an employment relationship.

The right to short-term studies with unemployment security is mainly one-off. The right re-emerges when you meet the minimum employment condition of 26 weeks, and the calculation of the maximum time for earnings-related unemployment benefit restarts. This is required if your previous short-term studies lasted more than three months. If your previous short-term studies did not last for more than three months, you will have the opportunity to complete new short-term studies immediately after your previous studies have ended.

However, if you have studied short-term studies before 1 January 2023, a prerequisite for new short-term studies is always the fulfilment of the work requirement. This requirement is not affected by the duration of previous short-term studies.

It may be possible to amortise short-term studies provided you contact the employment services in good time.

Short-term studies use up the maximum length of time for earnings-related unemployment benefit just like regular studies.