Guide on Grounds Not Covered by SSS Unemployment Benefit Offer for Members
Here is a guide on the grounds that can result to a member’s disqualification from the SSS Unemployment Benefit application.
The Social Security System is one of the entities that its members can turn to during times of great need for financial assistance. These include instances of losing one’s job, sickness resulting to absence from work, disability, and calamity.
The state-run social insurance institution offers loans and benefits to its members to provide financial assistance during challenging situations. One of the offers is the SSS Unemployment Benefit.
The said benefit offer was crafted for members who involuntarily lost their job. It is open for locally-employed members, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), and kasambahays who have posted at least 36 monthly contributions, 12 months of which should be in the 18th-month period immediately preceeding the month of involuntary separation from employment. The member must be not over 60 years old at the time of filing of claim.
However, there are grounds that can result to a member’s disqualification from the SSS Unemployment Benefit grant. A member shall not be qualified to receive the grant under any of the following grounds:
- Serious misconduct;
- Willful disobedience to lawful orders;
- Gross and habitual neglect of duties;
- Fraud or willful breach of trust/loss of confidence;
- Commission of a crime or offense; or
- Analogous cases like abandonment, gross inefficiency, disloyalty/ conflict of interest/ dishonesty.
The SSS member must have also not claimed an Unemployment Benefit for the last three (3) years. The authorized causes of separation from work include the following:
- Installation of labor-saving devices
- Retrenchment or downsizing
- Redundancy
- Disease/illness of the employee whose continued employment is prohibited by law or is prejudicial to his or her co-employees’ health
- Closure or cessation of operation
- Inhuman and unbearable treatment accorded the employee by the employer or his/her representative
- Serious insult by the employer or his representative on the honor and person of the employee
- Commission of a crime or offense by the employer or his/her representative against the person of the employee or any of the immediate members of his/ her family
- Economic downturn
- Natural or human-induced calamities/disasters
