The Hong Kong Government has released its 2022 Employment Support Scheme to provide wage subsidies to employees for three months (May – June – July 2022) under the Anti-epidemic Fund.
The application period has been set between 29 April 2022 (8 am) and 12 May 2022 (11:59 pm).
An applicant applying in the capacity of a company/corporation/organization/natural person will be eligible if fulfilling the following criteria:
- The employer is not part of a public administration/council
- The employer has been involved in MPF Schemes or set up ORSO Schemes on 31 December 2021 or before
- The employer has not been committed to winding up, deregistration or striking off processes, or declaring the company dormant
- The employer has fully settled any clawback or penalty of the 2020 Employment Support Scheme (if any) on 10 May 2022 or before
The 2022 Employment Scheme can also apply to self-employed persons if fulfilling the following criteria:
- The self-employed person has created an MPF “self-employed person” (SEP) account on 31 December 2021 or before and did not terminate the account when applying
Should the self-employed person have more than one “MPF SEP account”, only one application can be submitted.
In order to compute the wage subsidy quota, a reference month has to be chosen based on the MPF/ORSO between October and December 2021 (the reference month shall be the month that brings the highest level of maximum subsidy amount). Applicants who successfully applied to the 2020 ESS can choose between their MPF/ORSO Scheme record from the 2020 ESS and their MPF/ORSO from the fourth quarter of 2021.
Government agents will compute each applicant’s subsidized quota cap and maximum subsidy amount based on the reference month, with the following computation:
| Reference month wage |
Subsidy quota related to the number of employees within the wage range |
Monthly maximum subsidy |
| HK$8,000 or more |
= Full subsidy quota |
HK$8,000*Full subsidy quota |
| HK$3,000 – HK$7,999 |
= Half subsidy quota |
HK$4,000*Half subsidy quota |
| 65+ employees with less than $3,000 |
= Elderly subsidy quota |
HK$4,000*Elderly subsidy quota |
| |
Total = subsidized quota cap |
Total = Maximum subsidy quota |
Any business in an industry considered as less impacted by the COVID pandemic (supermarkets, pharmacies, hospitals, e-commerce, insurance, banking, property management, real estate development, real estate agencies, delivery services, public utilities, and human resources outsourcing) will be subject to a cap of 100 employees on the maximum number of subsidized headcounts.
Eligible self-employed persons will be granted a one-off subsidy of $8,000.
More details can be found on the official website of ESS 2022. If you have any questions regarding the Scheme, please feel free to reach out to Fidinam for advice. Contact us via the form below or at info@fidinamgw.com.
