Our understanding of what is being offered is to prevent lay-offs the government is willing to fund eligible employers (by which we understand all those that make MPF contributions) up to 50% of employee’s wages (capped at HKD 9,000, i.e. 50% of HKD 18,000) for 6 months. The payment will be made in 2 batches with the first one due in June.
From a radio interview with the Labour Minister last week it would appear applications can start to be made in June with the aim of making the first payment (50%) also in June. Employers can choose any month between January and April to be the base month for the calculation of the 6 month payment. The money must be paid to the employees and no redundancies are allowed. Other than that there is no detail around what is being proposed.
Because we have no doubt declarations will be involved, we suspect that companies will have to apply themselves but at this stage it is unclear. If Black Mountain can help you in any way, we will.
