If one of your employees loses their job, you will be responsible for paying the unemployment benefit to them. Keep in mind that as a self-insured employer for this benefit, you will not be required to pay any employer contributions to the unemployment fund (‘WW-premie’).

We will pay the unemployment benefit directly to the employee and you will receive an invoice from us on, or around, the 18th of every month. Your national insurance contribution (‘werkgeverspremie’) will be added to the invoice amount.

You will only be invoiced for the unemployment benefit in the following situations:

• Your employee is entitled to receive an unemployment benefit and you are the employee’s last employer. 
• Your former employee has been dismissed or made redundant by their most recent employer and has worked less than 26 weeks in the last 36 weeks (‘wekeneis’). 
• Your former employee has been dismissed or made redundant by their most recent employer, who is also an employer in the public sector and education. Your former employee worked 26 weeks in the last 36 weeks, but fewer hours for their most recent employer than for you. The most recent employer will cover the unemployment benefit for the hours the employee worked there. You will cover the unemployment benefit for the remaining hours.

You will not need to pay out the unemployment benefit to your former employee if they had a work experience contract (‘werkervaringsovereenkomst’) while working for you or if they fall under the Supported Employment Act (‘Wet sociale werkvoorziening’).

It is your job to help unemployed former employees return to work (‘re-integratie’). This means you must decide whether your former employee needs help in returning to work, for example through training or a coaching plan. If your former employee is receiving an occupational disability benefit (‘arbeidsongeschiktheidsuitkering’), we will manage the return-to-work process instead of you.

While receiving support to return to work, an employee will sometimes need to be partially or fully freed from 1 or more of the unemployment benefit obligations. We will assess whether an employee qualifies for such an exemption or not. To apply for an exemption, use the form ‘Former employer’s return-to-work recommendation’ (‘Advies van ex-werkgever over re-integratie’). 

A former employee who is receiving return-to-work support will be expected to actively participate in, and fully cooperate with, this process. If you find your former employee is not doing this, you can let us know by completing the form ‘Report unacceptable behaviour during the return-to-work plan’ (‘Melden verwijtbaar gedrag tijdens re-integratietraject’).

You can access all information related to the financial aspects of the unemployment benefit and your employee’s return-to-work process in the employer portal (‘werkgeversportaal’). To log in to the employer portal, you will need an EH3 level eHerkenning account. 

Perhaps you cannot access the employer portal or your organisation might be using a system that imports data from the employer portal and you need the technical specifications. If this is the case, please send an email to our IT Helpdesk for Self-Insured Employers for the Unemployment Benefit (‘Servicedesk Eigenrisicodrager WW’) at erdww@uwv.nl. 

Make sure you do not include any personal information in your message. Instead, ask us to contact you directly so that we can send you a secure email using Zivver. This will ensure that all our email communication from this moment onwards is secure. 

To learn more about Zivver, see ‘Email UWV securely using Zivver’ (‘Beveiligd mailen met UWV via Zivver’).