The situation for recipients of unemployment benefits on cessation of cash benefits

The new shorter unemployment benefits period of two years for the unemployed with insurance entered into force on 1 January 2013. This report elucidates what has happened with the insured unemployed who had been notified that there their right to unemployment benefits would end in March and June 2013. The report was initiated on the basis of considerable public interest in whether halving the unemployment benefits period will get the unemployed into work, or whether these people will be transferred to the temporary education/training scheme or 'senior jobs', or whether they will lose public assistance altogether.
The report builds on a questionnaire survey among an extract of unemployed persons at risk of losing their unemployment benefits in June and July 2013. The Danish Economic Councils, the trade organisation for Danish unemployment insurance funds Arbejdsløshedskassernes Samvirke and the expert committee on elucidation of the active employment efforts (the Carsten Koch Committee) have financed the questionnaire survey together.
Among other things, the report shows that four in ten participants who exhausted their right to unemployment benefits in March had a job by June. Almost a third of these were in 'senior jobs'. Just over three in ten took part in the temporary education/training scheme, whereas 8% were on voluntary early retirement pay and 7% on welfare benefits. Four percent stated that they had no job and did not receive any public benefits.