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Application form for short-time work benefits (icon image)
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Jens Büttner / dpa
German companies will have easier access to short-time work benefits until September.
The Federal Cabinet has decided to extend a corresponding regulation by Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) by three months.
Accordingly, short-time work benefits will continue to be granted if at least ten percent of the employees in the company are affected by a loss of work.
Otherwise it's a third.
Overall, low-threshold access to short-time work benefits is guaranteed, the ministry added.
The government wants to help in the event "that the supply chain problem worsens as a result of the war of aggression in Ukraine," said Heil.
Short-time work has proven to be an effective tool for securing jobs during the corona pandemic.
With the extension of the access simplifications for receiving short-time work benefits, one ensures that employment relationships are stabilized even in the current volatile situation.
The other pandemic-related special regulations on short-time work benefits, on the other hand, are to expire as planned on June 30, 2022, according to the statement by the Federal Cabinet.
This applies, among other things, to higher benefit rates and longer periods of entitlement.
This “takes into account the fact that the restrictions caused by the pandemic have now largely been lifted and the effects on the economy and the labor market have ceased to exist”.
The labor market is still "on the road to recovery" and is "currently in good shape".
The regulations were extended by three more months in March.
dam/dpa
