Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced businesses could be eligible for a two-week wage subsidy if Covid-19 has seen their revenue fall by 40%.
This 40% threshold is the same as the eight-week wage subsidy businesses have been able to apply for from June. The revenue decline for the first iteration of the wage subsidy was 30%.
Under the newest subsidy, the revenue drop needs to have occurred for at least 14 days between August 12 and September 10 compared to last year.
The rate of the subsidy will remain the same - $585.80 for full-timers and $350 for part-timers working less than 20 hours a week.
The subsidy is available nation-wide.
It’s worth noting that businesses still have until September 1 to apply for the eight-week subsidy launched in June.
Treasury expects Auckland's move to Level 3 and the rest of the country's move to Level 2 to see an additional 460,000 workers be supported by this subsidy at a cost of $1.1 billion.
As for the new subsidy, this is expected to support 470,000 workers at a cost of $510 million.
The cost of the new subsidy will be covered by un-spent funding set aside for the eight-week subsidy. This means the Government won't need to dip into the $14 billion recently ring-fenced to cover any future Covid-19 expenses.
Around $13 billion in wage subsidies have been paid out to date.
Robertson confirmed businesses can't receive the new subsidy while they are still receiving the eight-week one.
The Ministry of Social Development will start receiving applications for the new subsidy from Friday.
See the Work and Income website for more.
More support for businesses granting workers sick leave
Separately, Robertson removed the revenue-drop and ‘negatively impacted’ tests for the Covid-19 Leave Support Scheme.
This means businesses with workers who have been told by health officials or their medical practitioner to self-isolate will receive the equivalent of the wage subsidy to help cover that person’s wages for the time they cannot be at work.
“Our focus is on doing everything we can to support our strong public health response. That means removing barriers to a person getting tested, including fears that a positive result would put their employment at risk or that they wouldn’t receive income while they couldn’t work because they had used up their sick leave," Robertson said.
New PREFU date set
Finally, and separately again, Robertson said Treasury's Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) will be published on September 16. It was due to be published on Thursday before the election date changed.
Wage subsidy sustainability considered
Coming back to the wage subsidy, Robertson said he made the new subsidy available nationwide, rather than just in Auckland, because Auckland is an integral part of the economy.
Tourism operators that had been expecting visitors from Auckland, companies that supply and trade with Auckland businesses, and hospitality and retail businesses around the country are all affected by the move up alert levels.
Robertson said it was also administratively difficult to confine the subsidy to Auckland while paying it out quickly.
Asked by media whether a subsidy could be targeted to a region in the future, Robertson said it was a “horses for courses” situation. He's asked officials to look into this.
Officials are also considering how the suite of government support packages available - the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme, the Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme and the Covid Income Relief Payment - could potentially be tweaked to “ensure support continues to be adaptable and flexible for alert level movements”.
Robertson said he wasn't considering broadening the Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme to enable medium-sized businesses to get interest-free unsecured loans from the Crown.
Nor was he considering getting involved in a “Funding for Lending Programme” term lending facility for banks, which the Reserve Bank is designing to encourage banks to lend to keep inflation and employment buoyed.
Reaction
National supported the introduction of the new two-week wage subsidy, but took the opportunity to again highlight the Government's failure to keep Covid-19 out of New Zealand.
"Ongoing subsidies can’t hide the heavy price Kiwis are paying for the Government’s border failures," its finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith said.
ACT leader David Seymour supported the subsidy, but simultaneously said: “What we can’t have is the Government creating a false economy by endlessly propping up businesses and having the threat of lockdowns looming over us."
Seymour, who is campaigning on major public sector spending cuts, also said investing in public health measures to keep the virus out of the community would've been "cheaper" than this latest round of wage subsidies.
49 Comments
And in the meantime they can work on Orr to come up with a new strategy to ensure the rest of the economy pays to help keep property prices high! The ponzi is continuing to grow. My view a managed retreat would be less damaging than a crash. But their view seems to be any retreat/crash is just tooo bad to consider. That will happen inspite of them.
Banks now have an additional time window to clean house.
Or...(no pun) they will get this deferral for ever. Now that its classified as not a "bad loan" banks dont have to hold more of their own capital, aka risk for their poor lending practices.
I'm picking this is just for the election, and Labour will let gravity occur once they rule alone. All indicators are that prices should decline but they are not. With deposit return being worth nothing, what do you invest in?. People without any creativity are buying houses.
While home ownership rates are at historic lows and NZ continues to be a low wage economy - subsidies paid to workers and beneficiaries will just be transferred to asset owners [landlords] via rents.
This miss-allocation of capital will add to GDP but as it produces nothing, Kiwi's standards of living will decline. Our dollar may also lose value .. which is really a hidden tax, which obviously impacts non-assets owners the most. Drug use will rise.
New Zealand has a rentier class, many of whom complain about any leg-up for younger generations but will happily take government handouts, accommodation supplements, cry out for commercial rent relief, commit white-collar-crime .. all while (depending on age) collecting NZ Super.
This is a poor aspect of how NZ is run. It's clearly become a continuous situation for those disadvantaged and in the know. How long before this knowledge, or at least a greater understanding is mainstreamed?
There are legal implications too. The Electoral Commission could start to get involved where political parties misrepresent the National Debt as unable to be forgiven and the process of money/credit creation. To garner votes through fake/misleading financial, election advertising surely won't continue to get a free pass.
Comparing household spending to government spending for example is a misrepresentation as governments create money when they spend and receive taxes. Also to claim younger generation will be burdened by government debt denominated in NZD is pushing it.
It's something you hear a lot in Wellington, at least. The idea is there's so few listings during that period, that house hunters will have to contend with more people. Plus if you're confident to list in winter, it shows the house is likely dry and warm (something that's rare in Wellington). That's the idea anyway.
The subsidy is per employee of a company and you have to supply their IRD numbers.
It's also for company owners who also need to supply their IRD numbers, if an individual owns multiple companies which meet the criteria of a 40% drop in income, they qualify for the subsidy fo each company
And how many lockdowns will we have to endure over the next few years, Im picking quite a few. Can they just chuck and extra couple of Billion at it each time???
Its weird how they talk like once we get over this we are in the clear, this Pandemic is just starting to stretch its legs globally, we all better be prepared for the long haul...
The subsidy scheme is a bit of a gamble really. Recent case law has stipulated that employees are entitled to full pay in the event a business has to close due to level 3 & 4 restrictions. This means a business may end up paying a lot more in wages than it receives in subsidy if their is another lockdown.
Raggett v Eastern Bays Hospice Trust t/a Dove Hospice
Note everything Grant Robertson said in March about "employers should make their best efforts to pay 80% but failing that at least pass on the subsidy" has been ruled illegal. Employees are entitled to full pay if a business is shut on account of level 3 or 4 lockdown. As under the law they are considered fit, able & willing to work even though they obviously can't work because of lockdown.
I breezed over it, but to me it appears Dove failed in consultation with employees. It appears to me, If they had done this effectively and obtained agreement for a cut in wages, or other changes to employment agreement where is the problem?
Ok, so the employees disagree with wage cuts. Then start redundancy process.....
Business owners only have a finite number of tools to use.
"Ok, so the employees disagree with wage cuts. Then start redundancy process....."
But you can't do this if you take the subsidy, one of the conditions of receiving the subsidy is you agree that the employee for whom the subsidy is taken is not be made redundant. Sure you are all required to to have "good faith" negotiations however at the end of the day the employee can say "pay me in full" or its a personal grievance. So effectively taking the subsidy stacks all the chips in the employees favour for the period of the subsidy. Employers can't use the best tool they have redundancy.
I mean realistically it is still probably a good gamble to take the subsidy, however if we go level 4 in the next few weeks some employers are going to get their fingers burnt from taking the subsidy. Especially ones that have to deal with unions.
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