Introduction

Amid the city’s worst coronavirus outbreak and surging unemployment rate, the Government announced on 18 March 2022 that it plans to launch a new round of the Employment Support Scheme (“ESS 2022”) to help small and medium-sized enterprises that are adversely affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. Under the ESS 2022, eligible employers will receive wage subsidies to retain employees who would otherwise be made redundant. This article will discuss the overall framework of the ESS 2022 that has been announced by the Government so far and will highlight some important points that every employer should know for the time being.

Eligibility for the ESS 2022

The Government announced that the ESS 2022 will target industries directly or indirectly affected by the fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Preliminarily, employers in industries that are not adversely affected by the fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, including supermarket chains, pharmacy chains, property management companies, banks, financial institutions, delivery businesses, telecommunications firms, private hospitals and real estate developers that employ more than 50 staff will not be eligible for the ESS 2022.

Subsidy period and amount

An eligible employer will receive a fixed amount of HK$8,000 each month from May 2022 to July 2022, totalling HK$24,000, for each full-time employee whose monthly salary is under HK$30,000. Employees who are aged 65 or above and do not have an MPF account will also be eligible. The wage subsidies can only be used by employers to pay staff and not for any other purposes.

Potential cap

The Government proposed to impose a cap on the number of eligible employees that an eligible employer may claim wage subsidies for under the present round of ESS, which may not exceed the number of employees that the employer had received subsidies for under the previous round of the ESS.

Future development

The Government is still working out the details of the ESS 2022 and aims to invite applications in April 2022. We will keep you posted on the latest development regarding the ESS 2022.