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On 30 March 2020, the Government announced the JobKeeper Payment to assist businesses impacted by the Coronavirus by providing a subsidy to help them to continue paying their employees.
What is JobKeeper?
The JobKeeper Payment is a $1,500 (gross) fortnightly payment per eligible employee of a business who was on the books as at 1 March 2020 and who is retained or continues to be engaged. The amount will be paid to the employer and is designed to assist employers to continue paying their employees. Eligible employers will receive payments from the beginning of May and payments will be backdated to 30 March 2020. The payments will be available for a maximum of six months.
It is critically important that businesses are aware of the short-term cash flow burden that the program will create. The reimbursement payments are in arrears and so will only begin to flow from 1 May 2020. This means that each eligible business will need to fund a month of the payments to their employees before they receive an offsetting inflow from the Government. This cash flow impact must be considered very carefully and for some businesses this funding gap may not be viable.
To assist you to understand how Jobkeeper may be able to help you and your business to weather the Coronavirus storm we’ve prepared a quick Q&A.
You can also access the Government’s Jobkeeper Fact Sheet here for more details.
We recommend that you don’t lay-off or make any of your employees redundant until you talk to us about your specific circumstances, as there are a number of strict criteria to be met to be able to receive the Jobseeker subsidy.
We’re here to help so please contact us at consulting@ww2.austasiagroup.com and we’ll review your situation and assist you to achieve the best outcome for your business.
Simon Chesson
Director