JSA when you've not been employed long enough?

[hepaticanobilis]

I'm about to be made redundant as the company has gone bust and will be closing down. 😥

Does anyone understand how JSA works?

I'm not eligible for any other benefits due to having savings, which is fair enough. I expected I could at least apply for JSA having paid National Insurance for over 10 years but I don't understand what this means:

"To be eligible for ‘new style’ Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) you’ll need to have both:

• worked as an employee


• paid Class 1 National Insurance contributions, usually in the last 2 to 3 years (National Insurance credits can also count)

You will not be eligible if you were self-employed and only paid Class 2 National Insurance contributions."

Especially the last sentence, and the "usually in the last 2 to 3 years" bit?

Before I got my current job in April 2021, I was self-employed for about two years. (Before that I was employed.) Does that mean I would need to have been paying Class 1 NI for 2 to 3 years to be able to claim now and my Class 2 NI contributions are worth nothing in this situation?

The tax years they would be looking at for NI contributions if you applied now or in the near future would be 2020-21 and 2019-20. You would need to have paid enough contributions in these years to be able to claim new style JSA which can be paid for up to 26 weeks.

So it looks like you were self employed for the years they will look at. As long as you made NI contributions during that time as self employed you should be able to claim.

Just to add you can set up a Government gateway account on Gov.uk to check your NI contributions.

Use one of the free benefit calculators online to check eligibility.

How is the job hunting going?