April 3 (SeeNews) - Just 8% of Bulgarian companies plan to apply for state aid under the government's programme for preserving jobs and keeping companies running during the coronavirus crisis popularly known as '60-40 measure', the non-governmental Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) said.
According to the 60-40 scheme, in force from March 31, the state will finance 60% of the insurable income of employees remaining on payroll during the crisis if the employer contributes the remaining 40%. Prime minister Boyko Borissov said last week that the government will allocate around 1 billion levs ($555 million/511 million euro) to paying out its share of this employment support measure.
Employers who do not intend to apply for state aid plan other cost-saving measures regarding their personnel - 42% say they will lay off part of their employees, while 5% say they will dismiss their entire staff, BIA said on Thursday, citing the results of its poll of 759 local companies conducted during March 31-April 1.
A total of 48% of employers plan to put their workers or part of their staff on paid or unpaid leave, while 12% say they will cut expenses for salaries.
Some 52% of employers unwilling to apply for state aid under the programme said they would seek other ways to cut costs because they could not afford paying out 40% of the salary plus social and pension contributions of retained employees, 21% said the 60-40 measure does not suit them for one reason or another, whereas 9% said they have yet to estimate whether they would benefit from the programme.
Most employers who consider applying for state aid under the 60-40 programme have up to 10 employees, BIA said.
Of all the companies that intend to seek state aid, 55% operate in the services sector, 35% in retail and 10% in manufacturing. Of them, 37% say that they have suspended their activity in order to comply with coronavirus-related restrictions imposed by the government and 15% have suspended activity following an internal order, the association said.
As of April 2, 59 companies have filed applications for state support under the '60-40 measure', labour minister Denitsa Sacheva said on Thursday.
Bulgaria expects to receive approval from the European Commission regarding the measure by the end of this week so it can start distributing the financing to the sectors which are most vulnerable in the current situation, Sacheva said .
In the period between March 13, when the government declared a countrywide state of emergency over the COVID-19 spread, and April 1, a total of 31,643 people registered with labour offices in Bulgaria, with 17,793 of them saying their jobs were axed due to the coronavirus crisis, local Nova TV quoted Sacheva as saying earlier this week.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)