The March 2021 Wage Subsidy
Posted on 04 Mar 2021
From 1 pm, Thursday 4th March you can apply for the March Wage Subsidy scheme. The eligibility criteria has been updated to read it is for "New Zealand businesses who have had or expect to have a 40% decline in revenue over a consecutive 14-day period between 28 February and 21 March, compared to a typical 14-day period between 4 January and 14 February 2021 (6 weeks before the change in alert levels), may be able to get it." The keyword here is "expect to have". Please consider which 14-day period you will use to apply for this.
- There is a section on the Work and Income website that explains these criteria as well as the definition of Revenue. You can reference it here.
- You must mitigate the financial impact and what this means is also shown on the website.
- You can't receive more than one COVID-19 payment from Work and Income for the same employee at the same time. This includes the:
- Short-Term Absence Payment
- Leave Support Scheme and
- COVID-19 Wage Subsidy March 2021
- You also can't receive the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy March 2021 more than once for an employee.
The Resurgence Support Payment is a separate payment that you apply for through Inland Revenue (myIR). You may be eligible to apply for this payment in addition to this wage subsidy. The Wage Subsidy will be paid for 2 weeks at the rate of: ? $585.80 a week for each full-time employee retained (20 hours a week or more) ? $350 a week for each part-time employee retained (less than 20 hours a week). You can't get a Wage Subsidy for an employee for the period they're covered by a Leave Support Scheme or Short-Term Absence Payment. You'll be able to apply online from 1 pm on Thursday 4 March 2021 and payments start from Monday 8 March 2021.
