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How do working hours affect allowances?
You can be paid an adjusted allowance if you work no more than 80% of a full-time employee’s maximum working hours.
You can find out your industry’s maximum working hours from your employer or the applicable collective bargaining agreement. If there is no collective bargaining agreement in your industry, the maximum given in the Working Hours Act, i.e. 40 hours per week, applies.
If your working hours exceed the 80% ceiling, we will take this into account in your adjusted allowance for the application period during which you received your wages.
Example:
You worked occasional jobs in June. You receive your wages in July. The effect of your pay and the hours you worked falls on the adjusted allowance that you are due for July. If the hours that you worked in June were within the 80% ceiling, you will receive an adjusted allowance for July. If your hours exceed the ceiling, no allowance will be paid for July. If you received no other income in June on the basis of which your allowance would need to be adjusted, you will receive your earnings-related allowance for June in full.
Example:
You work part-time and apply for an adjusted allowance at intervals of one calendar month. Your wages are paid monthly in arrears. You work six hours a day from Monday to Friday, and the maximum working hours of a full-time employee in your industry are 37.5 hours a week, or 7.5 hours a day. On a monthly basis, 80% of a full-time employee’s working hours comes to 129 hours (7.5 h x 21.5 days x 80%).
You work 138 hours in May (23 days x 6 h/day). You are paid for the work in June, which means that the effect of these hours falls on the allowance that you are due for June. Your hours exceed the ceiling of 80% of a full-time employee’s maximum working hours (129 hours), and you will therefore not be able to receive an earnings-related allowance for June.
You work 120 hours in June (20 days x 6 h/day). You are paid for the work in July, which means that the effect of these hours falls on the allowance that you are due for July. Your hours do not exceed the ceiling of 80% of a full-time employee’s maximum working hours (129 hours), and you are therefore eligible for an earnings-related allowance for July.
We usually check for exceedances of the working hours ceiling by periods of one month or four calendar weeks. If you work to a period-based schedule, we use your work schedule as the basis for our assessment.
