The Government have announced a number of financial measures to help businesses help pay their staff. Below is a summary of the measures announced.
The Jobs Retention Bonus
The Jobs Retention Bonus, announced Wednesday 8th July, incentivises employers to bring back furloughed staff through to January 2021 in exchange for a £1,000 bonus per employee.
For businesses to qualify for this bonus, employees shouldn’t just be “returning for the sake of it – they need to be doing decent work”. The cost of that ‘decent work’ should be a wage of at least £520 on average each month from November to January 2021.
Payments for the jobs retention bonus will be made after the bonus scheme finishes from February 2021. Further information on the finer detail of the scheme, including how this will affect directors of PSCs, will be announced by the end of July and will most likely introduce measures to ensure the spirit of the scheme is adhered to.
The Chancellor also confirmed the closure of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, on the 31st October 2020.
Coronavirus Job retention scheme
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is a temporary scheme open to all UK employers for at least three months starting from 1 March 2020. You must have created and started a PAYE payroll scheme on or before 28 February 2020 and have a UK bank account.
Update: 27th March 2020:
The government has announced that directors in PSC’s will be covered for their salary by the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (if they are operating PAYE schemes). Read More
Support for businesses who are paying sick pay to employees
Employers will be able to reclaim SSP paid for sickness absence paid to employees due to COVID-19. This is a departure from standard SSP as this is a company cost and not refundable. The refund will cover up to 2 weeks’ SSP per eligible employee who has been off work because of COVID-19 from day one of sickness. The government is setting up a repayment mechanism over the forthcoming months to deal with this.