What are G-days? When are you entitled to them? And who is entitled to them? Read on to find out more about the rules on compensation in connection with termination or reduction of fixed working hours.
What are G-days?
G-days are the compensation the employee is entitled to in the event of a dismissal or reduction in fixed working hours, which the employee is not responsible for. This applies if the employee has been paid for 74 hours within 4 weeks prior to becoming unemployed. However, the term “G-days” can be misleading - in reality, it should be read as e.g. unemployment benefit or employer allowance.
In the event of termination through no fault of the employee, you are entitled to receive up to two G-days on the first two days of unemployment. Note that the right to G-days is cancelled if you are offered work by the employer but decline the offer. One G-day corresponds to the highest unemployment benefit rate, i.e. DKK 940 (in 2024), per day, while half a day corresponds to DKK 470 per day:
Who is entitled to G-days?
To be eligible for G-days, you must fulfil the employment requirement and be a member of an unemployment insurance fund. Each unemployment insurance fund and trade union has information about G-days on their website, but it's important to emphasise that the rules are not trade-specific - they are general.
These requirements must be met before you are entitled to G-days:
You must be a member of an unemployment insurance fund
First and foremost, you must be a member of an unemployment insurance fund at the end of your employment. However, it is not a requirement that you must be entitled to unemployment benefits to receive G-days.
You must be an employee
You must also be an employee to receive G-days. If you receive early retirement pension, you are also entitled to payment for G-days when you stop working.
Therefore, you cannot receive G-days after you cease to be self-employed.
You must fulfil requirements for working hours
To be entitled to G-days, you must have worked a minimum of 74 hours for the same employer within the last four weeks.
Employment conditions
Permanent employment
If you've been employed in a permanent position and are terminated, you are undoubtedly entitled to G-days. But although the rules also apply to this type of employment, G-days are not intended for them - quite the opposite.
G-days should be an incentive for the employer to hire the employee on a permanent basis under better conditions than a casual employment, where G-days come into play to a much greater extent.
However, an important point is that if you are permanently reduced in hours (or terminated and rehired in a new position at a lower number of hours), you will still be entitled to G-days based on the rules for half and full days.
Employed on fixed reduced hours (part-time)
If you are employed on fixed reduced hours and have days fully or partially without work, you are not considered terminated, as there is typically a notice period in the contract, while there is also the prospect of work after the days of unemployment.
Overtime is not part of the fixed working hours, and if you have worked more hours than you are employed for during a period, it will not be considered unemployment when you reach the number of hours stated in the employment contract again. This means you are not entitled to G-days. Here it is the contract that sets the standard.
Employed on piecework
If you only receive a salary for work performed, you are a casual employee and therefore have no notice period. Thus, you are considered to be terminated every day of unemployment and if you fulfil the other requirements, you will be entitled to G-days.
Temporary or relief worker
If you are a temporary worker or substitute at the end of the working day and do not have a schedule or otherwise planned work, you are considered terminated every day at the end of working hours. The employer must therefore pay for G-days if you have worked 74 paid hours within the last 4 weeks. However, there is a limit to how many times your employer can pay out G-days. For each calendar year, they can pay out G-days a maximum of 16 times. On these days, you as an employee cannot receive unemployment benefits.
Regardless of whether the workplace calls pretty much every morning to offer you work, if you haven't been presented with the work before you went home the day before, you're terminated. It may seem illogical, but you are nevertheless entitled to the payments. For example, if you work as a substitute teacher, it can quickly add up to more than half a month's salary that you are entitled to be paid in addition to your salary for the work done.
Should a dispute arise as to whether the employer had offered new work prior to the original termination, it is the documentation of this that determines the dispute. This documentation can come in many forms and must always be assessed. The key point is that the employer must be able to document that they have offered new work.
For companies that use booking calendars to distribute their work among employees, if a shift has not been personally offered to an employee, it cannot be said that the employee has been offered work, and thus will again be entitled to G-days. Even if the employee has not made themselves available on a given day in a booking system, the right to G-days does not lapse unless the employer has actively offered the employee new employment.
Repatriation
Although a layoff cannot be considered a termination, it can actually entitle you to G-days. This requires that it follows the rules of the collective labour agreement or “professional practice” if you are not on a collective agreement. Of course, it also requires that you don't get paid a salary for your dismissal. If the layoff is due to force majeure, the right to G-days is cancelled.
Division of labour
The rules for G-days also include job sharing and can be compared to working fixed reduced hours. The employment contract sets the starting point, and if you work fewer hours, the general rules for half and full G-days apply.
When disagreements arise
The rules for G-days are not always observed. There may be several reasons for this, says Finn Holst Villadsen from FOA.
“It's actually not very often that we receive complaints from members about non-payment of G-days, but there is not necessarily a 1:1 ratio between the number of complaints and the number of non-payments - on the contrary,” says Finn Holst Villadsen and continues.
“I don't have figures for the amount of money that is not paid out for G-days, but previous studies show that it's a lot of money. We have seen that employers have written in employment contracts that they do not pay G-days [which is not legal, ed.] Some private employers do not pay out, but whether this is an oversight or malicious intent is probably difficult to determine. There are problems especially in the temporary employment sector, and the biggest problem is that the temporary worker does not ask for G-days out of fear that they will no longer be offered work,” he says.
According to Finn Holst Villadsen, disputes often centre on whether the employee is to blame for the work stoppage and whether the employment requirement has been met. The latter is always documented if you use a time tracking tool like Intempus. Finn Holst Villadsen also explains that it is the National Labour Appeals Board's Employment Committee that settles disputes and that it is very rare for unemployment insurance funds and trade unions to lose cases about G-days. If your employer refuses to pay your G-days and the unemployment insurance fund agrees that you are entitled to them, the unemployment insurance fund will pay for the G-days and proceed to claim them from the employer.
Intempus can help you with G-days
With Intempus Time & Attendance, you can easily keep track of the administrative aspects of G-days, and you can even extract reports that give you a complete overview. You are always welcome to contact us at +45 26390400 for more information on how exactly we can help you and your organisation. We are also happy to provide a free and non-binding demo of the system, so you can get a feel for how we can make administration easier for you:
