54 BUSINESS
MAKING THE MOST OF JOBMAKER WHILE JOBKEEPER WAS THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S PRINCIPAL SCHEME FOR HELPING BUSINESSES TO SURVIVE THE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF COVID-19, NOW THAT IT HAS ENDED, A NEW INCENTIVE TO KICK-START THE ECONOMY HAS BEEN LAUNCHED. BUT WHAT IS JOBMAKER AND CAN IT BENEFIT YOUR PRACTICE?
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aunched on 7 October 2020 in line with the Federal Budget, JobMaker is a scheme that gives financial incentives directly to companies that take on new staff aged between 16 and 35. The question of whether this is leading or will lead to further age discrimination from employers is for another time, but the thinking is that with younger and less experienced employees being the ones that experienced the most negative impacts of pandemic related lay-offs, the scheme will have two main advantages – helping those potential employees get started or back into full-time employment, and financially rewarding the businesses that give them work. The scheme was conceived with hospitality, retail assistants and the like in mind, but it could equally benefit recent graduates and other early career employees in the A&D industry. There are two tiers, with eligible employers able to receive up to $10,400 a year for each new hire aged between 16 and 29, and up to $5200 for each new hire aged between 30 and 35. Employers have been able to register for the scheme since December 2020 and can access it until 6 October 2021.
ELIGIBILITY To be eligible for the JobMaker Hiring Credit payments and receive the Credits, employers must first register with the scheme and tick off a number of criteria, including the following. The employer must: n be a business in Australia, not-forprofit organisation operating in Australia or deductible gift recipient (DGR) n hold an ABN (Australian Business Number)
THE BUSINESS OF ARCHITECTURE
n be registered for Pay As You Go
(PAYG) withholding n be up-to-date with income tax and
GST returns for the two years up to the end of the JobMaker period for which they are claiming n satisfy payroll increase and headcount increase conditions n satisfy reporting requirements, including up-to-date Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting, and n not belong to an ineligible employer category.
INELIGIBILITY There are a number of considerations that would preclude an organisation or practice from receiving JobMaker Hiring Credits. They include the following. If the employer: n had the Major Bank Levy imposed on it, or a member of its consolidated group, for any quarter before 30 September 2020 n is wholly owned by an Australian government agency or a local governing body n is a company in liquidation or provisional liquidation n is an individual who has entered bankruptcy, or n is disqualified because the entity terminated the employment or reduced the hours of work of an existing employee or employees for the sole or dominant purpose of receiving increasing payments under the JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme. It’s important to stress that applicants will be ineligible or disqualified if they enter an arrangement to artificially inflate their headcount or payroll in order to fraudulently increase JobMaker Hiring Credits. If this happens, that employer
THE SCHEME WAS CONCEIVED WITH HOSPITALITY, RETAIL ASSISTANTS AND THE LIKE IN MIND, BUT IT COULD EQUALLY BENEFIT RECENT GRADUATES AND OTHER EARLY CAREER EMPLOYEES IN THE A&D INDUSTRY.
