Changes to the Government's Job Support Scheme
In recognition of the challenging times ahead, the Chancellor announced today increased support to the Job Support Scheme (JSS) which starts on 1 November and runs to 30 April 2021.
Here is a summary of the key points for your information.
Key Points
- Employees can now work for a minimum of 20% of their contracted hours part-time in a week to qualify for the Job Support Scheme (was previously 33%). This means someone working one day a week will be eligible.
- For the time worked, employees must be paid their normal contracted wage.
- For every hour not worked:
- the employer will pay 5% of the usual hourly wage (previously 33%) and
- the Government will pay 61.67% of hours not worked (previously 33%).
- The Government contribution will be capped at £1541.75 per month (previously was to be £697.92 pm).
- Employers will continue to receive the £1,000 Job Retention Bonus
- Employers will not be able to make a claim for JSS where the employee is made redundant or put on notice of redundancy.
- Employees will be able to cycle on and off the scheme and do not have to be working the same pattern each month, but each short-time working arrangement must cover a minimum period of seven days.
- For staff on variable hours, their pay will be measured using a ‘usual hours’ approach, from the methodology used for the Job Retention Scheme, which is the higher of the employee’s average hours worked in the tax year 2019/20; and their actual hours worked in the corresponding calendar period in the tax year 2019/20.
- The scheme will be open to all small/medium businesses and larger businesses that can show an impact on revenues.
I hope this helps, if you have any questions please get in touch.