Corona – Temporary unemployment

Due to the far-reaching measures implemented by the Belgian government, many undertakings are unfortunately obliged to call upon temporary unemployment for their employees. Recent figures show that today already more than 1 million Belgians are temporarily unemployed due to the COVID-19-crisis. The ONEM confirms that it is still receiving new applications.

Until recent two scenarios for temporary unemployment were possible: (i) either temporary employment due to force majeure or, (ii) either temporary employment due to economic reasons (because of the lack of work)

Given the large number of short-term applications and the fact that the conditions and formalities of the aforementioned scenarios differed significantly, the Council of Ministers decided to set up one uniform procedure for temporary unemployment which is the same for blue and white collar workers.

If an employer is faced with temporary unemployment due to the outbreak of the coronavirus (and therefore there is no or a lack or work), this situation will be qualified as a situation of force majeure.

We hereby list the most important changes of the corona procedure:

• All corona related forms of temporary unemployment are now automatically considered as temporary unemployment due to force majeure.
• The competent office of the ONEM should no longer be notified in advance of a situation of temporary unemployment based on force majeure (and their decision should therefore no longer be awaited). This measure applies provisionally until the 5th of April 2020.
• If you have already submitted an application for temporary unemployment due to economic reasons and you already reported the coronavirus when you notified the ONEM, the latter will convert your case into a file for temporary unemployment due to reasons of force majeure without further formalities or requirements. The aforementioned also applies when certain employees are still able to work or work certain days.

Important to note is that the DRS (scenario 5) form “force majeure” already indicates the reason for the temporary unemployment (and this by mentioning the code “nature of the day” 5.4 and with the reason “coronavirus”).

As an employer, you are obliged to submit this form as soon as possible so as the ONEM can use this form to determine the amount of the benefits for the workers wo are temporarily unemployed.

Hence, you do not have to postpone the submission of the DSR (scenario 5) from until the end of the month. As soon as all the data until the end of the moth are given, you will be able to submit the document. As a result of this, your employees to be paid more quickly

The following link refers to the aforementioned DSR (scenario 5) form :

In Dutch: https://www.socialsecurity.be/site_nl/employer/applics/drs/onem/scen5/about.htm

In French: https://www.socialsecurity.be/site_fr/employer/applics/drs/onem/scen5/about.htm

• Even if the coronavirus was not mentioned in the initial application for temporary unemployment for economic reasons, you can perfectly switch to the corona procedure by specifying “force majeure” as the reason for the temporary unemployment in the DSR (scenario 5) (by entering the code ‘nature of the day’ 5.4 and with ‘corona virus’ as the reason)
• If you have not yet applied for temporary unemployment, it is sufficient to submit a DRS (scenario 5) to the ONEM indicating “force majeure” as the reason for the temporary unemployment (by using code 5.4 and mentioning “coronavirus” as the reason). We advise you to contact your payroll agency as soon as possible in order to complete these formalities.
• During the corona procedure, the obligation of the employer to provide a control form C3.2A to each temporarily unemployed worker on a monthly basis will be expired for the months March, April, May and June 2020. Consequently, employees are no longer obliged to have a C3.2A card for those four months.
• The temporarily unemployed worker must add a simplified form C3.2 – EMPLOYEE – CORONA when submitting his application for his benefit claim to his payment institution. He will have to send this simplified form to his union or, if he is not a member of a union, to the HVW (the auxiliary cash office).
• Every worker who is temporarily unemployed on the basis of the corona procedure will be entitled to unemployment allowances without any specific conditions precedent (such as going through a waiting period). This benefit amounts to 70% of the average capped salary (capped at EUR 2,754.76 per month) provisionally provided until the 30th of June 2020.

On top of that, all workers concerned will receive a supplement of EUR 5.63 gross per day (on top of the daily unemployment allowance) to be paid by the ONEM.

However, a withholding tax of 26,75% on the professional income will be deducted from the unemployment allowance.

In order to accelerate the payment process, the federal government has expressed its intention to pay an advance of EUR 1,450.00 per month to all the employees concerned. The correct amount will only be determined, and, if necessary, regularised at a later stage.

• As part of the corona procedure, workers can alternate days of unemployment with working days. In this event, it is important to note that an unemployed day must contain a full day each time. Therefore, a day where a worker solely works in the morning and is unemployed in the afternoon (or vice versa) will not be qualified as an “unemployed day”.

If you have any further questions and/or require assistance in this respect, the Employment Team of Racine would be glad to assist.