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23.03.2020

Update on temporary unemployment support measures

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Meanwhile, due to the acute situation, the federal government decided last Friday afternoon to drastically simplify temporary unemployment of workers due to the Corona crisis.  

There is now a single system of temporary unemployment due to force majeure for all your employees who are or have become temporarily unemployed as a result of the spread of the coronavirus. There is no longer any distinction between companies that, due to the restrictive measures, can no longer have employees work (force majeure in the strict sense) and companies that are faced with a lack of work (economic reasons), nor is there any distinction between blue-collar and white-collar workers.

This relaxed rule applies retroactively from March 13, 2020 (i.e., also for the applications for temporary unemployment that your company has already submitted, even in the case of economic unemployment !) until June 30, 2020.

In a nutshell, this means the following:

 

1. What do you still need to do as an employer?

You no longer have to submit an electronic application for temporary unemployment to the NEO. You only have to make sure that by the end of each month, when declaring your services to your social secretariat, you indicate for each of your employees the period or days on which they were temporarily unemployed, with the correct payroll code for temporary unemployment. Your social secretariat will then make the necessary monthly electronic declarations to the government on the basis of these data.

Depending on the impact of the Corona crisis and the government measures on your company, you determine and communicate whether you will put your employees (the entire company, or departments or employee categories that you determine) on full temporary unemployment during the period that you determine (now possible until April 5), or possibly in partial unemployment (retaining, for example, one or more days of work per week for which you will pay their wages).

 

2. What should your employees do?

You inform each employee whom you temporarily place out of work that he/she must apply for his/her unemployment benefits himself/herself to the Auxiliary Fund for Unemployment Benefits or to his/her union (if the employee is unionized) with the appropriate form C3.2- Employee-Corona which he/she can obtain from that department.
During the period that an employee is temporarily unemployed, he/she is no longer required to maintain a control document (C3.2.A).

 

3. What does a worker in temporary unemployment get?

The employee receives an unemployment benefit equal to 70% of his/her capped gross salary (up to €2,754.76 per month). After withholding the withholding tax of 26.75%, this means a benefit of a maximum of 1,412.5 euros net for a full month of unemployment. Note that for the time being, every worker who is temporarily unemployed on a full-time basis receives a benefit of 1,450 euros (this is settled by the NEO afterwards with the exact amount to which the worker is entitled depending on the duration of his unemployment).

In addition, the employee also receives a supplement from the NEO equal to 5.63 euros per day of temporary unemployment. Please note: exceptionally, it may be the case that your company itself has to pay an extra supplement as a result of an existing CLA in your Joint Committee (best to check with your social secretariat).

In addition, each worker in temporary unemployment automatically (no application necessary) receives a one-time compensation from the Flemish government as an intervention in his/her energy bill (water/electricity/heating) of 202.68 euros.

 

If you need help or advice to use any of the above support measures, we will be happy to help. Contact us at 051 26 82 68  or by email to info@titeca.be.

Finally, we would like to inform you that we at Titeca have taken all the necessary measures in connection with the coronavirus and are closely following the recommendations of the FPS Public Health. In order to avoid contamination of employees and customers within the offices, we have all digital tools deployed so that our employees from home be able to work.

We stay as always reachable on the known phone number and/or via mail. In addition, we also provide permanency in the offices from Monday through Friday.