It’s refreshing to hear the comments from Employers and Employees in response to the ‘Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme’- Well done Government. Websites such as this Reddit document is so refreshing to hear.
As we learn more – we will release more information. What we can tell you now is that all UK Businesses will be eligible.
You will need to:
- designate affected employees as ‘furloughed workers,’ and notify your employees of this change – changing the status of employees remains subject to existing employment law and, depending on the employment contract, may be subject to negotiation
- submit information to HMRC about the employees that have been furloughed and their earnings through a new online portal (We will update you all as soon as this online portal is live)
HMRC will reimburse 80% of furloughed workers wage costs, up to a cap of £2,500 per worker month. HMRC are working urgently to set up a system for reimbursement. Existing systems are not set up to facilitate payments to employers. We have published a detailed guide of what this means for our clients.
In the meantime – for many of our clients their wages run is Tuesday 24th March 2020 or Wednesday 25th March 2020 – so we are literally days away from the next pay run.
The Government is backdating this back to from the start of the 1st March 2020 for employees who may have already been laid off/made redundant prior to these announcements. However the claims process won’t likely be ready until the end of April or early May 2020. So for the meantime, you could consider drawing upon the 12 month interest free Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan should your Business need short term cash flow support.
As a reminder – The Government is only contributing to costs of workers who have been Furloughed.
That means – workers who were otherwise going to be laid off or possibly made redundant because of the lack of work for them – they will be not working but retained receiving standard pay, and the government will pay a grant equal to 80% of their original wage costs at the 29th February 2020 up to £2,500 per month per employee to keep the economy in flow and to keep the employees earnings secure. Find out more on our detailed guide at.
Any employees paid via payroll will qualify as far as we know. More information to follow to confirm if this applies to close Companies – owner managed Businesses. This scheme will initially be around for three months and then will be reviewed at the end of May 2020.