ZAGREB, December 4, 2020 – Labour and Pension System Minister Josip Aladrovic said on Friday that HRK 7.6 billion from the state budget had been disbursed so far for job retention grants and shortened working hours, and the amount could climb to HRK 8 billion until the end of this year.
Aladrovic told reporters that the government had already outlined three measures to bail out the economy.
They are job retention grants of HRK 2,000 to 4,000 as a monthly allowance for workers which means that if an employer is shut down for more than 14 days they receive HRK 4,000 for each employee. In this case, employers are also exempt from paying contributions, which amount to about HRK 470 million. The Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) updated that measure today, he added.
The second measure relates to covering a portion of all fixed costs during lockdown and that measure could amount to about HRK 250 million. A fall in turnover of more than 60% in regard to the comparable period last year (Dec 2020 to Dec 2019) makes businesses eligible for that measure. The Tax Administration will soon hammer out the criteria for this measure.
The third measure is a new package of COVID loans through the Hamag-Bicro agency amounting to HRK 1.3 billion.
This encompasses all branches that the government considers will be most exposed due to the anti-Covid epidemiological restrictions that are in force until December 21, said Aladrovic.
“We will monitor the epidemiological measures, evaluate their effect and accordingly upgrade economic measures, if necessary, in an effort to keep jobs and business activities,” he added.
He underlined that negotiations with employer associations provided a series of proposals and one of them was to include micro enterprises that depend on all those who have been shut down.
“We have included them in the measures, however they have to prove a fall in revenue and that they have business connections with those sectors that are in lockdown,” Aladrovic explained and added that they will be eligible for the job retention measure.
Compensation of fixed costs only applies to those who are in lockdown until December 21, he underlined.
According to Aladrovic there are three various sources to finance the jobkeeping measures, the state budget, the EU Sure programme which has provided a loan for Croatia of just over one billion euro and EU funds, or one part of the resilience programme which will provide €530 million.
He added that in the earlier phase, between March and May, Croatia absorbed HRK 1.3 billion in funds from the European Social Fund and that it plans to absorb another portion of that fund for the jobkeeping measures.
The total effect on the budget regardless of all these sources of funding at the moment is HRK 7.6 billion, which is how much has been spent on support and by the end of the year that amount could be HRK 8 billion. About 60% of that will come from the state budget and 40% from EU funds, he explained.
(€1 = HRK 7.545450
