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You must always be available for work

 

  • In order to collect Danish unemployment insurance you must continually search for work.
  • Your job search must be realistic. This means that you must be qualified for the jobs you apply for and that you must make yourself readily available for the jobs you can manage. You must at all times do what you can to find work. If you find work you must be able to start at a day’s notice.
  • You must use all means at your disposal to find work: Look for job advertisements, send unsolicited applications and use your network and contacts.
  • As long as you receive unemployment benefits from MA, you must apply for work every week.
  • You must be actively searching for work. MA recommends that you apply for several jobs every week.
  • You must apply for work according to the “job plan” you make in coordination with MA. This plan is shared document between you and MA which outlines the basic strategy to find you a job.
  • If there are no jobs available within your profession, you must apply for jobs outside your profession.
  • If you do not find work quickly within your own profession you must continually broaden your job search regardless of its number of job openings.
  • You must apply for work in the fashion that is customary to the profession you wish to enter.
  • You must primarily apply for full time positions, even if you have a part time job.
  • Even if you are currently in a publicly funded work or training program – known as “aktivering” in Danish – you must continue to look for (unsubsidised) work.
  • If you are going on maternity leave or plan to retire, you must still look for work right up to the starting date of this activity.


This is how MA assesses whether you live up to the requirements

  • At a face-to-face meeting in MA, we do a review of your search activities and use it to assess whether you have made yourself sufficiently available for work.
  • We look at a log of your search activities, such as job applications, informal inquiries and other tactics you may have used.
  • Together with one of MA’s consultants, you must make a “job plan” to help structure your search.
  • We will always ask you to bring a number of job applications to every meeting.


If MA determines that you are not making yourself available for work, you will lose the right to unemployment benefits until you have 300 hours of employment within a period of 10 weeks.

Read more about the rules
You can find the rules in the Ministry of Employment’s departmental order no. 179 from February 19th 2007 on availability for work (§ 7-10, § 24-25 and § 28) along with the attached guide line no. 17 of February 19th 2007. Check also the announcement from the Directorate of Employment no. 2/08 from February 6th 2008 on the requirement for job search by citizens who are insured against unemployment. You can find the law texts on www.retsinformation.dk and www.adir.dk.