In order to provide the downtime benefit to an even wider range of employees of the companies affected by the crisis and for a longer period of time, the Cabinet of Ministers Regulations of 26 March 2020 on employers affected by the Covid-19 crisis have been improved. for a period of up to three years.
The amendments stipulate that the term for payment of downtime benefit has been extended until June 30 of this year and downtime benefit can be applied for only for the current calendar month. In the future, downtime benefits will also be available to people who are simultaneously engaged in economic activity, receiving an income of up to 430 euros per month, as well as those who return to work from parental leave.
In the future, employees who perform economic activities, but their income from it does not exceed 430 euros per month, will also be able to receive the downtime benefit. For such employees, the company may submit an application to the SRS for downtime benefit also for the period from March 14 to April 30, 2020, but this must be done within two weeks from the date of entry into force of these amendments, ie until May 25.
On the other hand, for persons who return to work from parental leave during downtime, the downtime benefit will be set at 100% of the granted parental benefit for the six-month period prior to the declaration of the emergency, but not more than 700 euros per calendar month.
Entrepreneurs who are idle will be able to apply for the idle allowance for their employees until June 30 of this year, but in the future they can apply for the idle allowance only for the current month. This means that the application for the downtime benefit for April can be submitted until May 8, for May – until May 30, but for June – until June 30.
From now on, the employer must immediately inform the SRS about the termination of downtime for an employee who has been granted a downtime benefit, as well as about other circumstances that are the basis for the termination of the payment of downtime benefit.
LETA has already reported that by Friday afternoon, the SRS has paid downtime benefits in the total amount of 14,879,824 euros.
Following the applications of 6746 companies, 40,721 benefits were paid to employees in the total amount of 14,098,799 euros. In turn, after the applications of 2510 self-employed persons, benefits in the total amount of 781,025 euros were paid.
On March 27, the SRS started paying downtime benefits to employees of companies that were negatively affected by the crisis caused by Covid-19. At the end of March, the SRS was allocated 102 million euros to start paying downtime benefits.
The downtime benefit requested by the SRS shall be paid within five working days after receipt of the application by transferring the benefit to the employee’s account specified in the application.
In total, the country has so far decided to allocate around four billion euros to mitigate the negative effects of Covid-19.
