in belgium the unions are authorized to pay the benefits to their members and in the netherlands several public agencies local governments hospitals schools universities the army transferred delivery of the extra unemployment benefit bovenwettelijke wwuitkering to private firms lastly in switzerland public and private agencies jointly administer the benefits and collect the contributions another very common instrument is unemployment assistance which is used in conjunction with unemployment insurance in of the countries studied see annex table ia d in most of those countries the unemployed person can apply for unemployment assistance benefits when he or she ceases to be eligible for unemployment insurance either owing to insufficient contributions or because the maximum benefit period has been reached