Wage Subsidy Scheme - 8-week Extension Payment

A Wage Subsidy Extension payment is available to businesses that are still significantly affected by COVID-19. This includes the self-employed, contractors and sole traders, registered charities and incorporated societies.

The extension provides an additional 8 weeks of payments to employers and self-employed persons who meet the eligibility criteria. Applications for the Wage Subsidy Extension are open from 10 June 2020 until 1 September 2020.

NOTE: You can't apply for the Wage Subsidy Extension for an employee until their original 12-week Wage Subsidy has finished.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the Wage Subsidy Extension, businesses must have had a revenue loss of at least 40% for a 30-day period in the 40 days before they apply, compared to the closest period last year (eg June 2020 compared with June 2019).

Businesses must sign a declaration about their circumstances including that they:

• will retain the employees named in their application for at least the duration of the Wage Subsidy Extension (8 weeks)

• acknowledge that receiving the subsidy does not override the employer’s existing obligations under employment law

• will remain responsible for paying their employees’ wages or salaries and for the period they receive the subsidy they will: 

• use their best endeavours to pay at least 80 per cent of each named employee’s ordinary wages or salary; and

• pay at least the full amount of the subsidy to the employee; but

• where the ordinary wages or salary of an employee named in their application was lawfully below the amount of the subsidy before the impact of COVID-19, pay the employee that amount.

Under the Wage Subsidy Extension, an employee’s normal or ordinary wages or salary are the wages or salary specified in the relevant employment agreement on the date the employer applied for Wage Subsidy Extension.

Please contact us today to see if your business maybe eligible for the extension payment.