Starting on October 1, Chile will become the first country to hand most of its unemployment insurance coverage over to a private system, citing the success of its privatized pension system which twenty years ago was likewise the first of its kind. Under the new system---open to all workers, and mandatory for those entering the workforce or switching jobs after the system takes effect---workers will pay contribute0.6 percent of their wages, matched by an additional 2.4 percent from their employers. The government will contribute $12 million annually for workers who do not make enough to cover their benefits and will regulate the securities the private system can invest in, but will remain otherwise uninvolved in the fund which will pay workers forty percent of their wages for five months if they are laid-off, fired or quit their job.
See LARRY ROHTER, The New York Times, June 23, 2002