Omicron is coming and businesses need to prepare for the inevitable disruption. This page was sourced from here and is MBIE's summary of what is currently available as Government support.
There are various COVID-19 financial support schemes available to businesses, depending on your situation.
Financial support is available to help you pay staff if they have to self-isolate while waiting for a COVID-19 test result, or because they have COVID-19, and are unable to work from home.
Short-Term Absence Payment
The Short-Term Absence Payment is available to employers to pay workers who follow public health guidance and stay home while waiting for a COVID-19 test result. It’s also available to eligible self-employed workers. To be eligible, workers need to be unable to work from home and need to miss work while waiting for their test results.
How much?
There’s a one-off payment of $359 payment for each eligible worker. Employers or the self-employed can apply for any worker once in any 30-day period, unless a health official or doctor tells the worker to get another test.
How to apply
You can apply on the Work and Income website.
More information and how to apply (external link) — Work and Income
Leave Support Scheme
The COVID-19 Leave Support Scheme is available to employers to help pay employees who have been advised to self-isolate because of COVID-19 and can’t work from home. It’s also available to eligible self-employed workers.
How much?
$600 per week for full-time workers and $359 per week for part-time workers.
How to apply
You can apply on the Work and Income website.
How to apply for the Leave Support Scheme(external link) — Work and Income
Leave Support Scheme(external link) — Work and Income
Small Business Cash Flow Loan Scheme (SBCS)
Under the Small Business Cash Flow Loan Scheme the Government provides loans to small businesses, including sole traders and the self-employed, impacted by COVID-19 to support their cash flow needs.
If you've previously applied for a SBCS and have fully repaid it, you can apply again.
Applications are open until 31 December 2023. You can apply through myIR.
The small business cash flow loan scheme will provide assistance of up to a maximum of $100,000 to businesses employing 50 or fewer full-time employees. This includes sole traders and self-employed businesses.
Details of the loans include:
- $10,000 to be provided to eligible businesses
- an additional $1800 per equivalent full-time employee
- interest free if the loan is paid back within two years
- an interest rate of 3% for a maximum term of five years
- repayments not required for the first two years
- you must show at least a 30% drop in revenue due to Covid-19, measured over a 14-day period in the past six months compared with the same 14-day period a year ago. If your revenue from the same period a year ago was also affected by COVID-19, compare the same 14-day period two years ago.
- maximum amount you can borrow depends on the number of full-time and part-time employees.
Use the small business cash flow loan scheme eligibility tool and find out how to apply.
COVID-19: Small business cash flow loan scheme eligibility tool
myIR(external link) — Inland Revenue
If your businesses doesn’t have a myIR account, you will need to create one to apply.
Register a myIR account for a business or organisation(external link) — Inland Revenue
Most applicants will receive their loan payment in full from Inland Revenue within five working days. You don’t have to accept the full loan amount you’re offered, and can decide to take a smaller loan.
Financial support tool
If you want help figuring out what financial help you might be able to apply for, try the financial support tool on the Unite against Covid website.
The tool will take you through a series of questions about to find out more about your personal situation including:
- your work status
- your situation
- whether your workplace has reduced business.
COVID-19 Financial support tool(external link) — covid19.govt.nz
7 Comments
Ultimately, the workers get covered and businesses are being hollowed out after each successive lockdown and tightening of restrictions. Death by a thousand cuts.
Remember, vaccines and lockdowns are designed to slow the spread, flatten the curve whilst stopping hospitals being overrun. It has little to be preventing individuals getting the disease bc the vaxed can still spread the disease with the newer variants albeit masking the symptoms.
[It's even arguable to say that vaxed are more likely to spread the disease due to complacency and putting themselves in situations of getting infected then innocently spreading it because they think the vaccine is an all powerful weapon when in fact it's not].
Are we going to get this media hype for every varient? Omicron this month. Winter will bring something new.
What's the end game Jacinda?
Incidentally I've got family in Europe (wife's side) basically all had omicron. Half didn't have symptoms. Vaccinated of course.
Couldn't be a better time to let it rip.
Well maybe there will be a better time. But Maybe the next varient is more contagious and deadly.
Again, what's the end game, triple vac for everyone including kids? Then we aim for wider immunity?
All these Michael Baker types are great at pointing out how serious cv19 is, modelling showing 1000s of deaths etc, but not so great at putting down hard metrics on what's required to get back to normal levels of personal freedom.
Or is this our new normal Jacinda?
Be kind new Zealand.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.