The 4.2 pct unemployment insurance fee that is active from August is enough to keep the Unemployment fund from running out of money for years.

“By  todays estimates we can safely assert that raising the unemployment insurance fee  to 4.2 percent will help us out of this crisis,“ Pevkur said.

“The Unemployment Fund’s forecasts that are base don the Ministry of Finance’s forecasts and other information, give us 3.5 years,” the Minister said.

Andrus Ansip, the PM said that forecasts always come to fo0rce with certain probability, but it’s likely they’ll realize.

In June the unemployment insurance fee was increased to 3 pct, but the government estimated it was not enough since the Unemployment Fund would have gotten EEK 1.5 bln deficit.

Higher unemployment insurance fee would bring nearly EEK 0.5 bln to the Unemployment Fund’s budget. The Fund’s net assets with reserves should be nearly EEK 1.8 bln at the end of the year.

Before June the unemployment insurance fee was 0.9 pct, which means it more than four-folds this year.