Emerging from Lockdown – Support for Businesses

At SimplePay, there is nothing that we love more than being able to make your payroll a breeze, so you can grow and build your business. Although this is our main goal, when we see opportunities that will benefit you, we don’t turn a blind eye. Therefore, our blog today is about updating you on some of the new and extended support measures provided by the Government, as well as an exciting prospect for the future.

Extension of the Job Support Scheme

The Job Support Scheme (JSS) was launched to help employers pay their employee’s wages during the circuit breaker period and was due to conclude at the end of last month. In August, the Government announced that it is extending the JSS for up to 7 months to March 2021. 

The value of the support given is dependent on the sector in which you operate, with the hardest hit sectors receiving more support. 

For more information on the extension and the JSS you can read this IRAS web page.

Job Growth Incentive

To help sectors that are doing well and have the means and opportunity to increase their workforce, the Government has announced the new Job Growth Incentive (JGI). Under the incentive, the Government will pay 25% of new local worker’s salaries for the first year of employment. Even better, if the new employee is aged 40 and above, the co-payment could be up to 50%!

The way that JGI works is that if you increase your overall local workforce between 1 September 2020 and 28 February 2021, in comparison to their numbers in August 2020, you will qualify for Government support. An additional requirement is that you need to increase the number of your employees earning $1, 400 or more per month.

The support consists of payment of 25% for those under 40, or 50% for those 40 and above for the first $5, 000 per month paid to these additional employees. The support will continue for one year from the date of appointment, provided that you continue to meet the requirements.

Payments will be automatically received in 5 separate payouts, based on your mandatory CPF contributions, with the first payout being in March 2021. There may be some cases where you will need to provide further evidence upon IRAS’s request, after which you will then receive your payout. 

For more information on the JGI, please visit IRAS’s dedicated page.

An Exciting Prospect

SMEs Go Digital is a scheme being run by the Government to encourage the uptake of technology by SMEs for certain business functions. Companies which meet the criteria can receive a payout of up to 80% of the cost of the solutions from the Productivity Solutions Grant. 

We are looking into registering SimplePay under the scheme and part of this process includes receiving satisfaction surveys from yourselves. If you joined us between 6 and 18 months ago, we need your help! If you’d like to assist us by completing the short survey, please get in contact with us at info@simplepay.com.sg.

We hope that this information has proved useful to you. If you have any questions on how the information above relates to SimplePay, please feel free to contact us at support@simplepay.com.sg.

Equally, if you are not yet a client of SimplePay but would like to be, or if you’d like to know how we can take the effort out of filing and calculating payroll, get in contact with us or visit our website: www.simplepay.com.sg.

Keep well and stay safe.

Team SimplePay