People Management asked legal experts for their steer on some key grey areas in the Chancellor's new Job Support Scheme announced on 25 September 2020.
Under the initiative, also known as a short-time working arrangement, firms will be able to reduce their employees’ working time to as little as a third of their regular hours, and will continue to pay them as normal for hours worked. The employee will then have their wages topped up to cover two-thirds of the pay lost by the reduction in hours, with the government and the employer paying a third of the remaining wages each.
Will Winch, Legal Director at Mishcon de Reya, commented: "Claims can be submitted in respect of a given pay period. This is likely to mean that if employees are paid on a monthly basis, employers would need to show that the employee worked for a third of the month. If the employee is paid weekly, however, the employer would need to show that a minimum of a day and a half – or thereabouts – was worked during that week.”
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