News

The Directorate of Labour’s service centers will re-open from either the 30^th of June or the 6^th of July, or upon the completion of the employees’ summer leave.

Summary

Job seekers, please be informed that if you are to continue to be registered on unemployment benefits alongside reduced employment ratio in May, you are required to confirm this in My Pages between the 20^th and 25^th of May.

The labour market in April 2020

The Directorate of Labour directs to job seekers in reduced employment ratio that they are required to deregister from the unemployment registry if their employment has been terminated and/or if they are returning back to  previous employment ratio. 

The Directorate of Labour has received instructions from the Minister of Social and Children’s Affairs to deviate from the general age requirements of the Unemployment Insurance Act when applying for unemployment benefits alongside reduced employment ratio.

Today april 7th,  we are paying out unemployment benefits alongside reduced employment ratio for the second half of the month of March.

Registered unemployment was 5,0% in February 2020 and increased from 4,8% in January and up from 3,1% in February 2019. There were in average 9.162 unemployed in February 2020 or up with 354 from January 2020.

Due to the unusual circumstances that have arisen, including heavily increased work loads at The Directorate of Labour, is evident that application processing periods will increase significantly.

The Directorate of Labour will pay benefits due to reduced employment ratio on the 7^th of April 2020

Please be informed that it currently not possible to apply for unemployment benefit payments alongside reduced employment ratio due to temporary company recessions as the application format production is not yet completed.

Please be informed that you are not yet able to apply for a reduced employment ratio due to labour market recession since the parliament hasn't passed the necessary legislation. The Directorate of Labour is currently working on the application’s digital implementation in accordance with how the proposed legislation looks, the application for reduced employment ratio is not yet available on the directorate’s website. We will send out a notification when the application database is ready, and individuals who have had their employment ratio reduced are able to apply. Please note that all applications will made valid from the date from which the reduced employment ratio was arranged, but not earlier than from the 15th of March. The Directorate of Labour requests that patience be shown due to increased workloads and encourages everyone to track announcements on the directorate’s website.

A bill for amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act on reduced employment ratio has been introduced to parliament.

Registered unemployment was 4,8% in January 2020 and increased from 4,3% in December and up from 3,0% in January 2019. There were in average 8.808 unemployed in January 2020 or up with 789 from December 2019.

“Initiative” (Frumkvæði) is a 3 month project available for unemployed people of foreign origin with good business ideas.  The training is provided by the Innovation Center of Iceland. It involves a 6 week training in making a business plan and assistance in putting the plan in action. 

The labour market in December 2019

Registered unemployment was 3,8% in October 2019 and increased from 3,5% in September and up from 2,4% in October 2018. There were in average 7.039 unemployed in October 2019 or up with 476 from September 2019.

Registered unemployment was 3,5% in September 2019 or the same as in August 2019 and up from 2,3% in September 2018. There were in average 6.563 unemployed in September 2019 or down with 185 from August 2019.

Registered unemployment was 3,5% in August 2019 and increased from 3,4% in July 2019 and up from 2,3% in August 2018. There were in average 6.748 unemployed in August 2019 or down with 83 from July 2019.