Economic and Social Council resolution on measures to support economic recovery of enterprises and employment

09.06.2021

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL RESOLUTION ON MEASURES TO SUPPORT ECONOMIC RECOVERY OF ENTERPRISES AND EMPLOYMENT

At its plenary session on 7 June, the Economic and Social Council adopted a Resolution on measures to support the economic recovery of enterprises and employment.

(developed on its own initiative)

Consultancy Center - Berkovitsa publishes its content:

The Economic and Social Council of the Republic of Bulgaria included in its Action Plan in 2021 the development of an opinion on "The economic consequences of the spread of COVID-19 in Bulgaria and measures to overcome them."

The plenary session, at its meeting of 28.05.2021, decided that the Conference of Presidents should prepare a draft resolution of the Economic and Social Council on measures to support the economic recovery of enterprises and employment. At its meeting on 01.06.2021, the Conference of Presidents adopted a draft Resolution of the Economic and Social Council on measures to support the economic recovery of enterprises and employment.

At the plenary session of 07.06.2021, the Economic and Social Council adopted the resolution.

  1. ESC found that at the end of May 2021 expired a number of measures introduced by the Law on Measures and Actions during the state of emergency, announced by a Decision of the National Assembly of March 13, 2020 to overcome the consequences from the pandemic, such as: the so-called measure “60 out of 40” and the measure “Short-term employment support in response to the COVID-19 pandemic” (BGN 290), intended for the hotel and restaurant, transport and tourism sectors. By the end of June 2021, the application under the measure "Keep me" to support the income of workers from businesses closed by an act of a state body, which is no longer applicable, will be completed.
  2. ESC recognizes that there are some recovery processes, but finds that the country's economy still needs targeted measures to support business and employment, while maintaining the requirement for revenue decline by at least 20%. ESC offers:

2.1. To continue the targeted support for the sectors with objective difficulties and market problems, such as sector I "Hotel and restaurant", economic activities with code 49.39 "Other passenger land transport, not elsewhere classified" and 51 "Air transport" (NACE.BG-2008), introduced a new measure "75/100", which will combine the current support for the closing measures "60 to 40" and "Short-term employment support in response to the pandemic of COVID19" (BGN 290). The program aims to retain more than 35,000 jobs in these key sectors of the economy.

2.2. To finance and implement a measure to provide support to the income of employees in the amount of 75% of the insurance income, in proportion to the time during which they did not work due to part-time work, in order to keep nearly 300,000 jobs .

2.3. To continue the implementation of the project "Employment for you", which, when the set aside funds of BGN 210 million are exhausted, will be supplied with additional financial resources so that it can be implemented at least until the end of 2021.

2.4. Similar to the project "Employment for you", to develop a program to promote and maintain employment in agriculture and primary processing of agricultural products.

2.5. To develop a program "Support for restart" for self-employed persons, which will provide targeted one-time support of 50% of the decline in income for 2020 compared to 2019, but not more than BGN 5,000. the support is a decrease of at least 20% of the declared income for 2020 compared to that for 2019.

  1. To accelerate the negotiation and payments to the final beneficiaries under the measures for support of small enterprises with a turnover over BGN 500,000 and of medium-sized enterprises for overcoming the economic consequences of COVID-19.
  2. ESC expresses the following position on the economic measures announced by the government:

4.1. The proposed measure to facilitate and accelerate access to credit for SMEs through the OPIC "Portfolio Guarantees" operation is useful, but far from sufficient, especially compared to the measures in force in other European countries.

4.2. ESC supports the announced sectoral support measures, such as providing vouchers of BGN 500 for a vacation in the country to 30,000 students and continuing to support charter flights to and from Bulgaria with EUR 35 per seat.

  1. The design concept of the measures referred to in 2.1. and 2.2. is described in Annex 1 to this Resolution.

ANNEX № 1

CONCEPT OF MEASURE "75/100" TO SUPPORT THE EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME OF WORKERS AND EMPLOYEES IN ENTERPRISES WITH A DECREASE IN SALES REVENUES AS A RESULT OF 19

Purpose of the measure:

Maintaining employment and supporting the income of employees in enterprises with a decrease in sales revenue (over 20%) as a result of the negative impact of COVID 19.

The measure unites the current so-called "60 to 40" and "Short-term employment support in response to the COVID-19 pandemic" (BGN 290) in respect of the hotel and restaurant sectors, economic activities with code 49.39 "Other passenger land transport" and 51.10 "Passenger air transport" (NACE.BG-2008).

Conditions for using the measure:

  1. Decrease in the net sales revenues for the month for which the application is applied by not less than 20 percent compared to the respective month of 2019.
  2. Existence of one of the hypotheses:

2.1. Objective difficulties and market problems for the activity due to the impact of the pandemic situation in sector I - "Hotels and restaurants", economic activities with code 49.39 "Other passenger land transport, not elsewhere classified" and 51.10 "Passenger air transport" from the Classification of Economic Activities ( KID - 2008)

2.2. Introduced part-time work on the basis of Art. 138a, para. 2 of the Labor Code during the period from June 1 to the end of the emergency epidemiological situation.

Amount of support:

  1. For employees employed in the sectors "Hotels and restaurants" and economic activities 49.39 "Other passenger land transport nec" and 51.10 "Passenger air transport" - 75 per cent of the amount of insurance income for April 2021 and from the insurance contributions due at the expense of the employer of each employee.
  2. In the cases of introduced part-time work - 75 per cent of the insurance income of the employees for April 2021, in proportion to the time during which they did not work due to the introduced part-time work, but for not more than 4 hours daily, as well as social security contributions at the expense of the employer for the same time.

Example: From 1 June to 30 June 2021, the employer introduces part-time work for certain workers from 8 to 6 hours. Under this measure, the company will receive support in the amount of 75% of the insurance income of each of these employees in April 2021 for the difference of 2 hours during which workers do not actually work due to the introduced part-time work, and the part of the insurance contributions at the expense of the employer for these 2 hours.

The employer is obliged within 5 working days to pay the funds received in this order to the workers and to pay the respective social security contributions.

Period of validity of the measure:

From June 1, 2021 until the end of the emergency epidemiological situation.

The application for the measure for the period is not one-time, but is month for month, with proving a decrease in net sales revenues by not less than 20 percent for each month for which it is applied.