\n\tThe Morrison government has unveiled the long awaited changes to key COVID-19 stimulus measures on Tuesday, with the announcement that the JobKeeper wage subsidy program has been extended until March 2021, albeit at lower rates and with additional eligibility testing for small businesses and sole traders.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe decisions have been made following a Treasury review to address better target payments to businesses and sole traders who will still be struggling with the effects of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe changes will include:<\/p>\n
\n\t– A two-tier payment will be introduced from 28th<\/sup> September 2020 and will run until 28th<\/sup> March 2021, based on hours employees work<\/p>\n \n\t– For employees working more than 20 hours a week, the payments will decrease from $1500 to $1200 a fortnight from 28th<\/sup> September 2020 until 3rd<\/sup> January 2021, after which will reduce to $1000 a fortnight from 4th<\/sup> January 2021 until 28th<\/sup> March 2021<\/p>\n \n\t– For employees working less than 20 hours a week, the payments will decrease to the lower tier rate of $750 a fortnight from 28th<\/sup> September 2020 until 3rd<\/sup> January 2021, after which will reduce to $650 a fortnight from 4th<\/sup> January 2021 until 28th<\/sup> March 2021<\/p>\n \n\t– JobKeeper eligibility will be re-tested in October 2020 and early January 2021, based on turnover decline to qualify for continued JobKeeper payments<\/p>\n \n\tThe Treasury review found the JobKeeper program has been effective in saving businesses from collapse and workers from unemployment.<\/p>\n \n\t <\/p>\n \n\tThe JobSeeker supplement will also be extended until December 2020, with the $550 fortnightly payment decreased to $250 from 28th<\/sup> September 2020 until the end of the year. In addition, from the end of September, those on JobSeeker can earn up to $300 a fortnight before their JobSeeker payment is affected. <\/p>\n \n\tThe Government is hopeful that with this incentive will encourage people to get back into work without worrying their JobSeeker supplements will be cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Federal Government today announced extensions and variations to the JobKeeper and JobSeeker schemes. The changes will take effect from 28 September 2020 and will continue until 28 March 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclepeople.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}