parallax background

German social law


Unemployment insurance


Every employee is a member of a public unemployment (insurance) fund.

He contributions to the fund and, depending on his income and the length of his contribution payments, he can have a right to a financial for a duration of 6 to 12 months (in some cases longer). The payment makes only 60% to 67% of the net salary, considering last year before unemployment.

Very important is the registering duty – the public labour agency is responsible for this kind of the benefits – at the public labour agency (Agentur für Arbeit).

It must happen within 3 days from knowing of the termination of the contract or at least 3 months before the expiration of a labour contract for a limited period (last possible moment).

Very important is also a question if an employee caused the end of a contract by his own termination statement, a breach of a contract or a termination agreement etc. If doing so, an employee must consider the shortage of benefits of up to 12 weeks (in case of benefits for only 6 months it results in the loss of the half of the benefit). The only chance to avoid this consequence is to show that there was a sufficient reason for such behavior in regard or for the ending of the contract (termination based on breaching a contract by an employer or his representatives or based on a bad economic condition of the employer’s entity, at which an employee was obliged to work by contract with an aim of avoiding if a termination of the contract by the employer for the economic reasons, etc.).