Next round of employer subsidies by mid-September

Employers will get the wage subsidies through the Employment Support Scheme by mid-September, the Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong said today.

Two leading supermarket chains and large-scale estate management firms will have to undertake extra commitments, he said.

Betty Fung Ching Suk-yee, head of the Policy Innovation and Coordination Office, said most eligibility criteria will remain unchanged.

Parknshop and Wellcome will have to roll out policies that will give back to the community if they are to get government subsidy. Law said their applications will not be approved unless their proposal satisfies the government.

Law said the two supermarket chains must comply with the government’s requirements as they had received more than HK$100 million each in the first tranche of the wage subsidy scheme.
The government will have talks with the supermarket chains later, according to Law.

He said he expects a “creative” proposal by the supermarket chains.

Large-scale estate management companies will also have to give back 80 percent of the subsidies they got from the government to tenants, which can be in the form of waiving tenant management fees.

Law said the companies will have to report to the government on how the subsidy will be shared after discussion with the business owners.

He also said that most of the 168,000 applications received by the government for the first tranche of the scheme have been processed.

“Eighty eight percent of the applications have been approved in the first tranche, and less than 2,000 applications are still being processed,” Law said.

He brushed off claims that the government should only help small-to-medium enterprises.

"In terms of employee numbers, small-and-medium enterprises have 370,000 employees, while large firms employ 558,000," Law said. "It will affect a lot of workers if the large firms decide to lay off their employees.''