SSS ready to pay unemployment benefits to workers projected to lose jobs due to COVID-19

The Social Security System (SSS) is prepared to pay unemployment benefits to some 30,000 to 60,000 workers projected to lose their jobs as a result of the possible layoffs in or closures of private companies hit by the economic fallout from the fast-spreading of COVID-19.

SSS ready to pay unemployment benefits to workers projected to lose jobs due to COVID-19

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, who is concurrent chairman of the Social Security Commission (SSC), said he was assured by SSS president and chief executive officer Aurora Cruz Ignacio that the state-run pension fund is ready to shell out P1.2 billion under a worst-case scenario in which as many as 60,000 of its premium-paying members lose their jobs in the months ahead and apply for unemployment benefits.

SSS premium-paying members can avail themselves of the unemployment benefits equivalent to half of their average monthly salary credit for a maximum of two months if they are displaced because of redundancy, installation of labor-saving devices, retrenchment, closure or cessation of operation and disease or illness.

They should have paid the requisite minimum number of monthly contributions for three years to qualify for this unemployment benefit, 12 of which should have been made in the last 18 months.

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They should have paid the requisite minimum number of monthly contributions for three years to qualify for this unemployment benefit, 12 of which should have been made in the last 18 months.

Visit www.sss.gov.ph today. You can also chck the Social Security System homepage via this link.