EMPLOYERS in Britain will pay more to keep on staff part-time under the new coronavirus Job Support Scheme (JSS) compared with schemes in other European countries, Labour revealed today. 

The party said that Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s new scheme, to take effect on November 1, penalises employers for bringing two workers back part time, rather than keeping one on full-time hours.

Its analysis compares the difference in weekly wage costs between employing two workers on half their hours and one full-time across the arts, hospitality and manufacturing sectors. 

It shows that employers who want to bring two staff back for half the working week, instead of keeping one employee full-time and making the other redundant, would pay more wage costs than companies in France, the Netherlands and Germany.

The scheme would see Britain’s employers pay a third (33 per cent) of wages for hours not worked by an employee. Having two employees working part time would mean bosses pay the costs twice.

The JSS — to replace the more comprehensive furlough scheme — will subsidise salaries in firms that cannot take employees in “viable jobs” back full time.  

To be eligible, employees need to work for at least one-third of their normal hours. For the hours not worked, the government and employer will each pay one-third of the remaining wages. The employee would get at least 77 per cent of their pay.

Employers in Germany pay nothing towards non-working hours, so bringing back two staff members part time will cost the same as bringing back one full time, regardless of industry. 

In France the employer pays 14 per cent of hours not worked and, in the Netherlands, wage subsidy depends on decreases in firms’ turnover. 

Even if a British employer also qualifies for the one-off £1,000 Jobs Retention Bonus, wage costs remain higher than in comparable European countries.

Labour called for a job recovery scheme to allow staff to work reduced hours with government wage subsidies for the rest of the week.

 Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said: “Viable businesses just need support to cope with the restrictions the government has imposed on them.

“They pinned their hopes on the Chancellor to deliver, but he’s forcing them to flip a coin over who stays and who goes.

“This wasn’t by accident — it was by design. The Chancellor’s sink or swim Job Support Scheme is a throwback to the worst days of Thatcher, and just like in the 1980s people on the lowest incomes will pay the highest price.”