The Government and the two sides of industry have therefore entered into a three-party agreement about a temporary wage/salary compensation scheme for employees whose jobs are threatened by cut-backs. The agreement is a major contribution to the joint efforts of the Government and the two sides of industry to ensure that the effect of covid-19 on the work and livelihood of Danish employees will be as small as possible.
With the agreement, the Government and the two sides of industry ensure that businesses which experience a reduction in orders and fewer customers as a consequence of covid-19, which will lead to too little work for their employees, can obtain a partial refund of wage/salary costs for a period of three months.
The agreement covers all employees in private-sector businesses in Denmark
The businesses undertake not to lay off employees for financial reasons during the period in which they receive the compensation.
The agreement covers employees in all the private-sector businesses which are extraordinarily hard hit financially as a consequence of covid-19 and who are therefore faced with having to lay off at least 30% or more than 50 employees.
In this situation, the business will receive compensation from the state of 75% of the wages/salaries of the employees in question, with a maximum, however, of DKK 30,000 per month, if they do not lay off employees.
For employees paid on an hourly basis the state compensation amounts to 90%, however, with a maximum of DKK 30,000 per month.
The temporary compensation scheme will be in force from 9 March to 9 July 2020.
This agreement means that thousands of employees who would otherwise have been laid off can now keep their jobs and their pay, until there is an improvement in the extraordinary situation on the labour market.
Application
Application for wage/salary compensation must be forwarded by digital means and everybody who fulfils the criteria of the scheme will receive compensation. The applications will not be processed on a first-come-first-served basis.
