As part of the Federal Budget, the government released measures designed to encourage businesses to employ additional job seekers.  One measure was called JobMaker, which is aimed at getting young job seekers back in the work force.  Below we summarise the initial outline of the JobMaker program. 

What do you get under JobMaker if you meet all the criteria?

  • $200 per week for each eligible employee aged 16 to 29.
  • $100 per week for each eligible employee aged 30 to 35.
  • The first claims will commence in February 2021.
  • Claims will paid for a period of 12 months from an eligible employee’s start date.
  • Claims will be paid quarterly (at this stage the information indicates it will be paid in arrears – similar to JobKeeper).
  • The maximum claim amount per eligible employee for the 12 month period is $10,400.

Which employers are eligible?

Employers who meet all of the following criteria:

  1. Hold an Australian Business Number.
  2. Have their tax lodgements obligations up-to-date – e.g. tax returns lodged, BAS lodgements up to date, Taxable Payments Annual Report lodged.
  3. Are registered for Pay As You Go (PAYG) withholding.
  4. Are reporting through Single Touch Payroll.
  5. Are not claiming the JobKeeper subsidy.
  6. Have created new roles in the business. For example, a newly hired employee must be filling a new role in the entity rather than filling an existing role that was vacant.  There will be additional criteria released regarding this once the budget measure is approved.
  7. The new role was created between 7 October 2020 and 7 October 2021.

Additionally, for an employee to be an eligible employee for JobMaker they must:

  1. Be hired to fill a new role in the business – see items 5 and 6 above.
  2. Be aged 16 to 35.
  3. During at least one of the three months before the employee was hired they received income support payments from the government.
  4. Once hired, the employees need to have worked an average of at least 20 hours per week over a quarter to qualify for the payment.

This budget measure is not yet legislated and as the measure progresses further information will be provided on the eligibility criteria and how employers can register for the JobMaker Hiring Credit.

**All of this information is subject to the passage of the legislation and is based on the information released in the 2020-2021 Federal Budget. **