Anyone who was following the Federal Budget coverage during the last week would have heard it mentioned that, of the 450,000 new jobs that the Government announced in October 2020 would be created by the Job Maker Program as at Budget night, only 1000 applications had been approved under the scheme.

With such a small number of recipients taking advantage of this announced stimulus measure, have employer’s and their adviser’s forgotten about this measure? Or, even more importantly, is the package simply not providing enough benefits for employer’s who are looking to recruit additional staff?

As eligible employers can still take advantage of Job Maker until October 2021, I thought it would be a good time to provide a refresher of the package and what is available for businesses looking to employ additional staff.

Job Maker provides eligible employers with a payment of $200 per week for new eligible employee’s aged between 16-29 years of age and $100 per week for employee’s aged 30-35. This is available for 12 months from the date the new employee commences employment.

To qualify as an eligible employee, the employee must:

• Work a minimum of 20 hours per week during the time they are covered under Job Maker
• Have commenced employment between 7 October 2020 – 7 October 2021
• Have received Job Seeker, Youth allowance or Parenting Payment for at least 28 consecutive days within the 84 days prior to starting employment
• Be in there first year of employment with the employer
• Be employed on a casual, permanent, or fixed term basis.

There are also rules around which businesses qualify as eligible under the scheme.

As you can see from the above, not every new employee a that a business chooses to take-on will allow the employer to qualify for and receive Job Maker. This could be half of the reason for the low up-take of the measure.

If you think you may have new employee’s who qualify under the above measures or are looking to recruit additional staff and would like additional information about applying for Job Maker, please contact your Client Manager on 1300 365 125 to discuss in more detail.

The material and contents provided in this publication are informative in nature only. It is not intended to be advice and you should not act specifically on the basis of this information alone. If expert assistance is required, professional advice should be obtained.