To maintain employment during the epidemic, the Government has launched the “Employment Support Scheme” to provide time-limited financial support to employers to retain employees who may otherwise be made redundant.
 
Eligible Employers 
 

• All employers who have set up accounts for Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) or Occupational Retirement Schemes (ORSO) on or before March 31, 2020 (i.e. no backdating to or before that date).

• Nominate any one month between December 2019 and March 2020 as the “specified month”. The amount of wage subsidies will be calculated on the basis of the number of employees and their respective wages in the “specified month”.

• The amount of wage subsidies will be calculated based on 50% of the actual wages paid to each employee in the “specified month”, with a wage cap at $18,000 per month. The maximum wage subsidy per employee is $9,000 per month.

 
Eligible Self-Employed Person 
 

• Self-employed persons who have set up an active MPF account on or before March 31, 2020 (excluding backdating) and with that account remaining opened as of March 31, 2020.

• Each eligible self-employed person will be granted a one-off lump-sum subsidy of HK$7,500.

 
Online Application Period
 
Employers

The first tranche :        from 25 May to 14 June 2020

                                   the wage subsidywill be disbursed within 3 - 4  weeks to subsidise salary
                                   payment from June to August 2020.

The second tranche :  will be disbursed in September 2020 to subsidise salary payment from
                                    September to November 2020 (application details will be announced later).


Self-employed Persons 

Online application for self-employed persons will open from 25 May to 14 June 2020, and the one-off lump sum subsidy will be disbursed in three tofour weeks after application.
 
 
Information required

Applicants should complete the application form online and upload the required supporting documents within the application period.


Employers

• Business Registration Number or other registration numbers

• Name of the MPF Trustee

• Name of the MPF Scheme and Scheme Registration / Participation Number

• Number of eligible employees in March 2020

• Bank account number and upload a scanned copy of the bank statement

Self-employed Persons

• Name of the MPF Trustee

• Name of the MPF Scheme (any of the MPF schemes of the SEPs) and Scheme Registration/ Participation Number

• Bank account number and upload a scanned copy of the bank statement

Required Undertakings 
 

• Not to implement redundancy during the subsidy period. With regard to the first tranche of subsidies, it means that the number of employees on the payroll in any one month of the subsidy period (from June to August 2020) should not be less than the number of paid and unpaid staff in March 2020;and

• To spend all the government wage subsidies on paying wages to their employees.

 
Non-compliancewill cause the Government to claw back the unspent balance of the subsidy back plus additional penalty.
 
For more information, please contact Ms. Amie Cheung at amie.cheung@lccpa.com.hk .