The employer may take advantage of a 3-month subsidy to the employees’ remuneration in the event of economic downtime or reduced working time.
The aid is conditional on a decrease in economic turnover. The condition for receiving the subsidy is a drop in sales of goods or services in terms of quantity or value by:
- not less than 15%, calculated as the ratio of the total turnover in 2 consecutive months after 01.01.2020 to the total turnover in the corresponding 2 months of the previous year as a result of COVID-19, or
- not less than 25 %, calculated as the ratio of the total turnover during any given month in the period after 01.01.2020 to the turnover in the preceding month.
Economic downtime. An employee subject to economic downtime is paid by the employer a salary reduced by not more than 50%, but not lower than the minimum wage, taking the working time into account. In this case, the maximum amount of subsidy per employee will amount to PLN 1,300.00 gross and social security contributions due from the employer, charged on the benefit granted, worth around PLN 230.
The conditions and mode of performing work in the period of economic downtime or reduced working time are established in an agreement with the representatives of the employees.
Reduced working time. The entrepreneur may reduce the working time by maximum 20%, but to not less than 0.5 full time, with the reservation that the remuneration may not be lower than the minimum wage, taking the working time into account. In this case, the maximum amount of subsidy per employee will amount to PLN 2,079.43 gross and social security contributions due from the employer, charged on the benefit granted, worth around PLN 370.
However, the subsidy is not applicable to the remuneration of employees whose remuneration obtained in the month preceding the application was higher than 300% of the average monthly remuneration announced by the President of the Central Statistical Office (GUS).
The benefits may be combined with other forms of aid, however, the aid may not be obtained for the same employees with regard to the same payments for the protection of workplaces.
An additional condition for receiving the subsidy is that the entrepreneur was not in default of payment of tax liabilities and social security contributions until the end of the third quarter of 2019. Moreover, there can be no preconditions for declaring bankruptcy in relation to the entrepreneur.
The subsidy is granted to small, medium and large enterprises for a total period of 3 months from the month of submitting the application.
Learn more about specific regulations from the article: Overview of the premises of the „anti-crisis shield” – employment issues
