The Council of Ministers today approved the Proposal of the Ministers of Finance and Labour, Welfare and Social Insurance for additional measures to support workers and businesses that continue to be significantly affected by the effects of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Based on the provisions of the Social Insurance Act, short-term benefits through the Social Insurance Fund for the first half of 2022 are calculated on the basis of contributions in 2020 and, therefore, a portion of hotel employees who have not been suspended by their employers but whose short-term employment was terminated have not met the required insurance conditions required by law due to lack of work in 2020 and therefore are not entitled to unemployment benefits.
It is recalled that by a relevant decision of the Minister of Labour, Welfare and Social Insurance, after agreement with the social partners, a special training plan has been drawn up for this group of hotel employees, through which a special monthly allowance is paid to the participants.
Further to the above, based on today's Decision of the Council of Ministers, a one-time support of EUR 1 million for the months of December 2021 and January 2022 will be paid to these unemployed persons, provided that the following conditions are met:
(a) They must be in the Republic of Cyprus
(b) They must not have rejected an invitation to participate in the special training programmes organised by the Human Resources Development Authority for hotel employees.
In addition, self-employed persons and enterprises that participated in previous periods in 2020 and 2021 in the Special Schemes implemented by the Ministry of Labour, Welfare and Social Insurance and belonging to the following economic activities will be paid a one-time grant with a total expenditure of approximately EUR 1.6 million:
[1] Photographers
[2] Taxi drivers
[3] Street vendors.
(MG/IK)
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