Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed, as opposed to social assistance programs which provide support on the basis of need alone. The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury.
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their families.
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compulsory governmental insurance system, not taxes on individual citizens. Depending on the jurisdiction and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary.
United Kingdom labour law regulates the relations between workers, employers and trade unions. People at work in the UK can rely upon a minimum charter of employment rights, which are found in Acts of Parliament, Regulations, common law and equity. This includes the right to a minimum wage of £9.50 for over-23-year-olds from April 2022 under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The Working Time Regulations 1998 give the right to 28 days paid holidays, breaks from work, and attempt to limit long working hours. The Employment Rights Act 1996 gives the right to leave for child care, and the right to request flexible working patterns. The Pensions Act 2008 gives the right to be automatically enrolled in a basic occupational pension, whose funds must be protected according to the Pensions Act 1995.
A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing an organization. Originally, layoff referred exclusively to a temporary interruption in work, or employment but this has evolved to a permanent elimination of a position in both British and US English, requiring the addition of "temporary" to specify the original meaning of the word. A layoff is not to be confused with wrongful termination. Laid off workers or displaced workers are workers who have lost or left their jobs because their employer has closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished. Downsizing in a company is defined to involve the reduction of employees in a workforce. Downsizing in companies became a popular practice in the 1980s and early 1990s as it was seen as a way to deliver better shareholder value as it helps to reduce the costs of employers. Research on downsizing in the US, UK, and Japan suggests that downsizing is being regarded by management as one of the preferred routes to help declining organizations, cutting unnecessary costs, and improve organizational performance. Usually a layoff occurs as a cost-cutting measure.
A severance package is pay and benefits that employees may be entitled to receive when they leave employment at a company unwillfully. In addition to their remaining regular pay, it may include some of the following:
Misclassification of employees as independent contractors is the way in which the United States classifies the problem of false self-employment. It can occur with respect to tax treatment or the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Social welfare has long been an important part of New Zealand society and a significant political issue. It is concerned with the provision by the state of benefits and services. Together with fiscal welfare and occupational welfare, it makes up the social policy of New Zealand. Social welfare is mostly funded through general taxation. Since the 1980s welfare has been provided on the basis of need; the exception is universal superannuation.
Unemployment benefits in Sweden are payments made by the state or other authorized bodies to unemployed people. They can be divided into a voluntary scheme with income-related compensation up to a certain level, or a comprehensive scheme that provides a lower level of basic support.
The Italian welfare state is based partly upon the corporatist-conservative model and partly upon the universal welfare model.
Welfare in France includes all systems whose purpose is to protect people against the financial consequences of social risks.
The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the United States Department of Labor is the federal office responsible for enforcing federal labor laws. The Division was formed with the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The Wage and Hour mission is to promote and achieve compliance with labor standards to protect and enhance the welfare of the Nation's workforce. WHD protects over 144 million workers in more than 9.8 million establishments throughout the United States and its territories. The Wage and Hour Division enforces over 13 laws, most notably the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family Medical Leave Act. In FY18, WHD recovered $304,000,000 in back wages for over 240,000 workers and followed up FY19, with a record-breaking $322,000,000 for over 300,000 workers.
Social security or welfare in Finland is very comprehensive compared to what almost all other countries provide. In the late 1980s, Finland had one of the world's most advanced welfare systems, which guaranteed decent living conditions to all Finns. Since then social security has been cut back, but the system is still one of the most comprehensive in the world. Created almost entirely during the first three decades after World War II, the social security system was an outgrowth of the traditional Nordic belief that the state is not inherently hostile to the well-being of its citizens and can intervene benevolently on their behalf. According to some social historians, the basis of this belief was a relatively benign history that had allowed the gradual emergence of a free and independent peasantry in the Nordic countries and had curtailed the dominance of the nobility and the subsequent formation of a powerful right wing. Finland's history was harsher than the histories of the other Nordic countries but didn't prevent the country from following their path of social development.
Social security in Germany is codified on the Sozialgesetzbuch (SGB), or the "Social Code", contains 12 main parts, including the following,
Unemployment insurance, also known as 失業保険, is the "user pays" system of unemployment benefits that operates in Japan. It is paired with Workers' Accident Compensation Insurance and referred to collectively as Labour insurance. It is managed by Hello Work.
The Danish Holiday Act is a Danish law regulating holiday time for employees.The act states how many days of paid holiday most employees in Denmark are legally entitled to. The law covers employees who receive wages for work performed in compliance with an employer, not including freelancers and employees working for the state. A new law was passed on 25 January 2018 by the Danish Parliament. It consists of a new concept of concurrent holidays and includes a transition period from 1 September 2019 – 31 August 2020 before being implemented on 1 September 2020. The concept of concurrent holidays allows employees to earn 2.08 holiday days each month, which they have access to use immediately, as opposed to the old scheme where workers earned holiday days for the following year.
The Employees' Trust Fund (ETF), a social security programme, was established on 1 March 1981 under the Act No.46 of 1980 by the Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to promote (i).employee ownership, employee welfare and economic democracy through participation in financing and investment (ii).employee participation in management through the acquisition of equity interest in enterprises and to provide for non-contributory benefits to employees upon retirement. All workers i.e. Permanent, Temporary, Casual, Contract, Piece-rate wages, Learners and apprentices who are employed in private and public sector are eligible to be benefited by it.
Italy does not have a nationally unified labor code. Labor legislation is wide-ranging, with laws, regulations and statutes that bear on labor relations. The Constitution of Italy contains declarations of principle relating to fair payment, maximum working hours, vacation, protection of women and minors, social insurance, illness, disability, industrial diseases and accidents, Freedom of Association and the right to strike. The Workers' Statute of 1970 was modified, and plays an important role.
Unemployment in Hungary measured by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office shows the rate of unemployed individuals out of the labor force. The European Union's own statistical office, Eurostat also makes reports and predictions about the Hungarian job market and the unemployment rate in the country. The KSH's most recent unemployment data shows the unemployment rate for men 15-74 to be 3.3% and 4.1% for women.
The Istituto nazionale della previdenza sociale is the main entity of the Italian public retirement system. All waged labourers and most of self-employed, without a proper autonomous social security fund, must be subscribed to INPS. The entity is under the supervision of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies.
