{"id":3531,"date":"2020-04-02T16:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3531"},"modified":"2020-04-02T16:01:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T16:01:01","slug":"covid-19-government-to-cover-employer-nics-and-pension-contributions-of-furloughed-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/covid-19-government-to-cover-employer-nics-and-pension-contributions-of-furloughed-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: Government to cover employer NICs and pension contributions of furloughed workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Government has announced that it will cover employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and pension contributions of furloughed workers.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The new measure forms part of the emergency financial package for employers and workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/guidance\/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme\">Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme<\/a> empowers businesses to retain employees by covering up to 80 per cent of wages of furloughed workers, up to a maximum of \u00a32,500 per worker per month. Employers can optionally make up the remaining 20 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Government says applicants will now receive \u201cfurther financial support\u201d \u2013 by covering the costs of employer NICs and minimum pension contributions.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Treasury, the new measure could save businesses up to \u00a3300 per month per employee.<\/p>\n<p>The new guidance states: \u201cThe government will now cover the employer national insurance and minimum auto-enrolment pension scheme contributions employers pay on the wages they must pay their furloughed staff \u2013 on top of the wages covered under the scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a similar announcement, the Government has also confirmed that furloughed workers will be allowed to volunteer for the NHS \u201cwithout risking their pay\u201d &#8211; a furloughed employee cannot undertake work for the employer or any other organisation.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the measures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said: \u201cSince the start of the coronavirus outbreak, I\u2019ve made it clear that hard-working employers and employees should not have to suffer hardship unnecessarily.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme supports workers and businesses up and down the UK \u2013 and today we\u2019re strengthening it because we will do whatever it takes to support jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For help and advice, contact our expert team today.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Government has announced that it will cover employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and pension contributions of furloughed workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,30,79,46,29,39,25,4,26,36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3532,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3531\/revisions\/3532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}