In his daily address on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government will be extending the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy amid the ongoing pandemic.
The current wage subsidy that is aimed at helping Canadian businesses and discouraging lay-offs will be extended beyond the month of June, he said.
Designed to aid in the steep declines in revenue due to COVID-19, the program offers coverage of up to 75 per cent of employee salaries for the first $58,700 — this will break down to $847 per week for employees.
The subsidy is offered regardless of the number of employees the business has, and can be back-dated to March 15th, 2020.
According to the Prime Minister, the goal of the extension is to “help kick-start our economic re-opening and boost jobs.”
The news of the extension comes after the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey numbers for April were released, reporting that nearly two million Canadians have lost their full time jobs since February.
Additionally, over one million Canadians have lost their part time jobs in the same period.
Trudeau says that further details of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy extension will be revealed next week.
Originally, the program was slated to fill a 12-week void for businesses, and would come to an end on June 6th.
As of Monday, May 4th, 96,000 employers have applied for the wage subsidy to help them pay 1.7 million workers.
