Summarising the new Job Support Scheme

On 31 October this year, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will end.

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced that from 1 November it will be replaced by the Job Support Scheme. The headlines relating to the Job Support Scheme are:

• It will apply to employees who work at least 33% of their normal hours.
• For the hours not worked by the individual, the government and the employer will each pay the employee one third of the employee’s equivalent salary for that unworked time.
• The level of contribution by the government for each employee will be capped at £697.92 per month.
• To qualify, an employee must have been on an employer’s PAYE payroll on or before 23 September 2020.
• Employers will be able to move employees on and off the Job Support Scheme.
• Employees are not required to consistently work the same hours, but to qualify must work the same hours for at least seven days at a time.
• The employer must agree any changes to working arrangements with the employee and notify the employee of the changes in writing (and any such agreement must be made available to HMRC on request).
• An employer does not need to have been part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to participate in the Job Support Scheme.
• It is currently planned that the Job Support Scheme will run for six months.

The law in this article is accurate as of 24 September 2020.

If you have any employment law queries, please do not hesitate to contact David Nathan at [email protected] or on 020 7822 2247.

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