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More than 200,000 employers apply for coronavirus wage subsidy and leave payments

Wednesday, 25 March 2020

More than 200,000 employers have made online applications for the new coronavirus wage subsidy and leave payment, after Work and Income closed its doors. 

Ministry of Social development phone lines were also being overloaded, a spokesman said.

As of 9am on Wednesday the ministry had received 189,880 applications for the Covid-19 wage subsidy and 17,113 applications for the Covid-19 leave payment.

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Minister of Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni says the ministry will be
Minister of Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni says the ministry will be 'upping' staff levels

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Staffing issues, Covid-19 pressure and the demand for hardship grants created the 'perfect storm' to overload Work and Income, Anti-poverty campaigner Ricardo Menendez March said

He also called for further increases to the benefit and for beneficiaries to be given phones. 

The move to online and phone services made things harder for those who were not digitally literate and the disabled, such as the deaf. 

'Before Covid-19 there was a concern for the reliance on digital systems - what about people with disabilities or those who are not digitally literate?

'There are already issues around accessibility and right now those gaps are being exposed.

'People are now scrambling for support,' he said. 

Ministry of Social Development (MSD) group general manager of client service delivery George van Ooyen said more staff would be recruited. 

'We are moving in coming days to recruit more staff and redeploying existing staff to frontline. We're also asking for assistance from other agencies.

'We are changing a number of our processes so that we can prioritise the most important work,' he said. 

The Government announced a support package for businesses and beneficiaries
The Government announced a support package for businesses and beneficiaries

The Government announced a $12.1 billion support package for businesses and beneficiaries on Tuesday.

The ministry was dealing with a high volume of applications, Jayne Russell, group general manager employment said. 

'We want to reassure employers that we are endeavouring to deal with the high volume of applications as quickly and efficiently as possible.

'We ask them for their patience as we work through those applications and process them for payment,' she said. 

All Work and Income payments will also continue as normal, the spokesman said. 

Work and Income closed its service centres on Monday night. 

The ministry is also making a number of other changes, coming into effect on March 30, for a six-month period: