Unemployment with a Company Allowance’ (formerly known as “bridging pension”) is a system where an employee who is fired at a certain age, is entitled to a fixed unemployment allowance paid by the State, supplemented with a company allowance paid by his former employer. In principle, an employee must reach the age of 62 and have a career of 40 years (male employees) / 33 years (female employees) (in 2017) to be eligible for this system. However, in addition to this general system, there are multiple exceptions for which the age and career requirements are lower (eg. for employees who work in a heavy occupation or for employees who work in a working time regime with night work). Recently, the National Labour Council adopted multiple Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA’s nrs. 120-126) which determine the age- and career conditions for these deviating systems for the years 2017-2018. Now it is up to the Joint Committees to further implement these national CBA’s at the sector of industry level.
Belgium