Student membership

Sotekassa (the unemployment fund of social and healthcare workers) cooperates with the following trade unions: 

• Tehy ry 
• Suomen Fysioterapeutit ry 
• Suomen Toimintaterapeuttiliitto ry 
• Suomen Työterveyshoitajaliitto ry 

If you are joining one of the trade unions mentioned above, you can apply for membership of the fund with the same form as the membership of the union.

Contact information for the unions can be found here.

You membership application will be first processed in the union and you first get a notification of the unions membership. After this your application will be processed in the fund and you get a notification of the fund membership separately.

If you ar not empoyed on the day your application arrives, membership of the fund will start on the first paid working day you have after the day your application arrived at the fund. You will be send a letter advising you to inform the fund the next time you go to work. When you inform the fund that you have started work, we will send you a confirmation of the start of your membership by post.

Sotekassa (the unemployment fund of social and healthcare workers) cooperates with the following trade unions: 

• Tehy ry
• Suomen Fysioterapeutit ry 
• Suomen Toimintaterapeuttiliitto ry
• Suomen Työterveyshoitajaliitto ry 

I you already are a student member of one of these unions, you can send a free-form membership application to the fund via encrypted email.

Provide in the message the following information:

• your name
• your social security number or your date of birth
• which trade union your belong to 
• that you want to join Sotekassa 
• that your are in paid employment on the day your are sending the message or what will be your first paid working day you have after the day you have send the message
• the name of your employer

Once your membership application has been processed, you will receive a notification in the mail about your membership in the fund. 

If you want to join only the Sotekassa without being/becoming a member of any trade union, you can send a free-form membership application to the fund via encrypted email.

Provide in the message the following information:

• your name
• your social security number
• your home address
• your telefon number
• your e-mail address
• that you want to join Sotekassa only (without being a member of any trade union)
• that your are in paid employment on the day your are sending the message or what will be your first paid working day you have after the day you have send the message
• the name of your employer
• from what day you want to join the fund (if later than the day you send the message)

If you are currently a member of another unemployment fund and would like us to notify your current fund of your resignation, please also add to the message:

• the name of your current unemployment fund
• the following text: I aurthorize Sotekassa to terminate my membership in my current unemployment fund.

Once your membership application has been processed, you will receive a notification in the mail about your membership in the fund. The invoice for the membership fee will be mailed separately.

Please note that membership of the unemployment fund alone enables you to receive earnings-related unemployment benefit and the employment support services offered by the fund. However, membership does not include other services, such as legal assistance in employment disputes. If you also want to become a union member, please see the instructions above.

Membership of the fund starts from the day your membership application arrives at the fund, provided that you are in paid employment on that day.

If you are not in paid employment on the day you apply for membership to the fund, you must inform the fund when you go to work for the first time after applying for the funds membership. In that case, the membership of the fund starts from your first working day.

If your have applyid for membership of the fund before you were employed, you can inform the fund of your first working day by sendin an e-mail to address [email protected]

Provide in the message the following information:

• your name
• your social security number or your date of birth
• what was the first paid working day after you send the membership application to the fund
• the name of your employer

The aforementioned instructions on notifying the fund of starting work apply to situations where we have been unable to confirm the start of your membership because we have not received information about your paid employment.

Once you have been accepted as a member of the employment fund, you don’t have to report any work you have done to the fund. The fund does not monitor or update your employment history information, so you don’t have to report to the fund. 

The unemployment fund only needs your employment information if you become unemployed or laid off and apply for unemployment benefits from the fund. For this reason, it is important that you keep safe all certificates of work periods.

Certificates that you should always keep

• employment contracts 
• work certificates
• salary statement (salary certifikates and payslip)

If you haven’t yet been accepted as a member of the fund, you can contact the fund for example by encrypted email. Contact information for the fund can be found here.

Once you have been accepted as a member of the fund, you can log into the funds eService-on-line-service, where you can take care of all your unemployment fund matters.