📋 Tender Overview
Cabinet decides on drafting aid for a draft law to extend special regulations in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic for short-time work benefits and other benefitsWith the formulation aid for the government factions decided by the cabinet today the period for receiving short-time work benefits will be extended to up to 28 months until June 30 2022 . Since companies that have been on short-time work continuously since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 already exhaust the maximum period of 24 months for short-time work benefits in February 2022 the extension of the period of entitlement is to come into effect retrospectively as of March 1st .In addition the previous special regulations due to the pandemic will continue until June 30 2022the exemption of mini-jobs from the short-time work allowancethe increased benefit rates for longer short-time work andeasier access to short-time workthe number of employees who must be affected by the loss of work has been reduced from at least a third to at least 10 percent andthe build-up of negative working time balances will continue to be completely dispensed with.Half of the social security contributions will be reimbursed to employers after March 31 2022 if short-time work is combined with qualification.The continuation of the special regulations for short-time work benefits ensures that employment relationships can also be stabilized in the second quarter and that unemployment and insolvencies can be avoided.With short-time work we have saved millions of jobs through the pandemic so far. Unfortunately Corona is still having a negative effect. The employees and companies in the particularly hard-hit sectors for example in the event and catering sector can continue to rely on the Minister of Labor. We provide planning security and continue to extend the job-securing bridge of short-time work until June 30 2022. We are expanding the options for using short-time work benefits from 24 to up to 28 monthsand the increase in short-time work benefits from the fourth and seventh month. This is how we ensure that employees keep their jobs and that companies do not lose their skilled workers so that they can get going again after the pandemic. This is forward-looking labor market policy.
