Covid-19: Bulgaria’s government extends the 60/40 wage support measure until September 2021

Bulgaria’s government is extending the “60:40” wage support measure for employers until September 2021. At the next Council of Ministers meeting on Wednesday, we will adopt BGN 106 million for pensioners for the supplement in January - BGN 50 each, as we continue to give during the pandemic, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on December 23.

According to the measure, the state will finance 60% of the social insurance costs of employees remaining on the payroll during the coronavirus crisis and the employer pays the remaining 40%.

During the meeting, the Prime Minister stressed that all other measures to support business during the pandemic continue to work. "All these measures are to maintain people's jobs, lives and standards. That is why the vaccine is important to us, fortunately every day we see a lasting trend for the number of recoveries from Covid-19 to be almost twice as many as the number of infected, " added the Prime Minister.

Labour and Social Policy Minister Denitsa Sacheva said that the 60/40 and 80/20 measures would continue to operate next year. A different job-saving measure would be amended so that as of next year, 75% of the insured pay of employees would be paid. Some BGN 50 million has been envisaged for this measure.

The 80/20 measure will be paid for with European Union funds. A resource under Operational Program "Human Resources Development" is reorganised for the purpose, in the amount of BGN 40 million.

Sacheva said that under the 60/40 measure, BGN 627 million had been paid out, which she said had preserved 250,000 jobs.

Under the 80/20 measure, for hotels, restaurant, tourism and transport jobs, BGN 23 million had been paid out, which Sacheva said had preserved 24 858 jobs.

Regarding the measure "Keep me", which is currently known as "BGN 24 per day" and which is to be transformed next year, the Minister of Labour and Social Policy said that in December, 4,653 applications were received from employers to compensate for 22,839 employees. "Payments have already started, and will be paid during the days between Christmas and New Year," Sacheva said. With regard to targeted assistance for families with children currently studying remotely, there are 40,000 applications and 23,520 families have been approved.

“With over BGN 40 million we will support small and medium-sized enterprises, and in December, 95 contracts were concluded under the procedure "Improvement of production capacity in small and medium-sized enterprises ", the Minister of Economy Lachezar Borisov reported in the meeting. He informed that under the voucher scheme for providing services for information and communication technologies, 450 vouchers worth a total of nearly BGN 8 million have been issued so far.

"Absolutely all 25 contracts for financing innovation projects worth BGN 7 million have been signed through the National Innovation Fund," the economy minister said. He reported that under the procedure for liquidity support for medium-sized enterprises, which is worth up to BGN 150,000, 1,285 project proposals have been ranked. There are also reserves with which the total number of project proposals becomes 1,703. "What we have done by restructuring the budget of the Operational Program" Innovation and Competitiveness” is to provide the full resource for all 1,703 project proposals," added Lachezar Borissov. The Minister also informed that by the end of the day new conditions for applying for the business support procedure, which is carried out together with the National Revenue Agency, will be published.

The Minister of Health Kostadin Angelov stated that the payment of the medical establishments, which maintain a capacity of 50% and over 50% of the usability of their beds for patients with infectious diseases and COVID-19, is currently starting." In the coming days, by the end of the year, BGN 50 million will be paid to more than 50 medical institutions in the country. These are mainly the large university hospitals, the district hospitals, some municipal hospitals and private hospitals, which maintain a capacity of 50% and over 50% usability of beds for the treatment of patients with COVID-19," said the Minister of Health.

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