Revenue-loss business able to juggle staff hours

Emergency IR changes allowing employers to ­reduce workers’ hours will be ­extended to some companies coming off JobKeeper.

Attorney-General Christian Porter. Picture: AAP

Emergency industrial relations changes allowing employers to ­reduce workers’ hours and change their duties will be ­extended to companies coming off JobKeeper if they meet a new revenue-loss threshold.

Business welcomed the government concession to employers who will no longer be eligible for JobKeeper after September, predicting the extension of the industrial relations measures to March would help recovering companies keep workers employed.

Attorney-General Christian Porter, following talks with ­employers and unions, said those companies coming off JobKeeper that meet the test would only be able to reduce employee hours to 60 per cent of the time they were working in March.

Previous arrangements that saw employers able to get the agreement of workers to use up their annual leave will not be a feature of JobKeeper 2.0 as the government said employers and employees who wanted leave used up had already done.

Businesses eligible for both stages of JobKeeper will be able to reduce hours to zero; adjust duties of work; alter the location of an employee’s work; and, by agreement with staff, change days and times of work.

Mr Porter said “legacy ­employers” — businesses currently receiving JobKeeper but ineligible from late September — will continue to have access to the industrial relations changes if they can show a 10 per cent turnover fall in relevant quarters this year compared to last year.

Legacy employers will not be able to require an employee to work less than two hours a day and must give a worker seven days’ written notice of any workplace change, up from three days under the first version of JobKeeper.

Penalties of up to $13,200 for individuals and $66,600 for body corporates can apply to employers who do not meet the 10 per cent test but knowingly or recklessly try to use the provisions.

Mr Porter said “it is important that the flexibility which has ­allowed many businesses to survive the crisis to date continues to be provided to businesses which are on the road to recovery but which haven’t made it out yet, to ensure they can continue to trade, keep people in jobs and continue to rebuild”.

“A 10 per cent threshold for businesses that were on Job­Keeper, but which will no longer qualify for the wages subsidy, will mean they can continue to adapt their workplaces to keep operating in the post-COVID world,” he said. “These changes are time-limited. They are not permanent changes. They are linked to the extension of JobKeeper until the end of March 2021.”

The Australian revealed in July that the government was considering the new lower revenue-loss threshold for employers coming off JobKeeper.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the 10 per cent reduction in turnover requirement was reasonable.

“If a business has not yet fully recovered, it is important that its access to the short-term provisions in the Fair Work Act is not cut off at the end of September,” Mr Willox said. Labor industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said the 10 per cent revenue-loss test was welcomed.