Updates on Urgent Economic and Fiscal Measures

Subject: Updates on Urgent Economic and Fiscal Measures to Protect Jobs and Address Unavoidable Needs

We hereby list some important new developments in the economic and tax fields aimed at protecting employment:

Update on the Emergency Wage Subsidy Program

In its Notice No. 4034 of November 18, 2021, the INPS published the first guidelines regarding the social safety net measures applicable during the term of an employment relationship, as provided for in Article 11 of Decree-Law No. 146 of October 21, 2021: “Wage supplementation benefits in the event of suspension or reduction of work due to events related to the public health emergency and a moratorium on layoffs for economic reasons.”

The INPS portal is ready to receive applications for wage supplementation.

Private employers may submit, on behalf of employees on their payroll as of October 22, 2021, applications for the Ordinary Allowance and the Exceptional Wage Supplement, for a maximum duration of 13 weeks during the period between October 1 and December 31, 2021, without paying an additional contribution. This benefit is available to employers who have already been granted the full 28-week period referred to in the Sostegni Decree No. 41/2021; Private employers in the textile industry, the manufacture of clothing, leather goods, and furs, and the manufacture of leather and similar goods—identified, according to the ATECO 2007 classification of economic activities, by codes 13, 14, and 15, may submit, for employees on their payroll as of October 22, 2021, an application for ordinary wage supplementation benefits for a maximum duration of 9 weeks during the period between October 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021, without paying an additional contribution. This benefit is available after the authorized period under the “Sostegni bis” Decree No. 73/2021 has elapsed (which, as a reminder, is 17 weeks during the period from July 1 to October 31, 2021); The bilateral solidarity funds guarantee the payment of the Ordinary Allowance up to the limit of the allocated resources, which have been recalculated at 844 million euros—from which the payment of the Ordinary Allowance is also guaranteed— while the resources for the alternative solidarity funds (for the skilled trades and temporary employment sectors) have been revised to 700 million euros.

For the duration of the benefit period, the private employers mentioned above are prohibited from initiating collective layoff procedures pursuant to Law 223/1991, as well as—regardless of the number of employees—from terminating an employment contract for just cause, with the suspension of ongoing procedures referred to in Article 7 of Law 604/1966 (the employer’s declaration of intent to proceed with dismissal for “just cause” and notification to the Labor Inspectorate, etc.), except in the following cases:

• 1) permanent cessation of business operations resulting from the Company’s placement into liquidation without any continuation—even partial—of its business operations;

• 2) in cases where, during the liquidation process, there is no transfer of a group of assets or business operations within the meaning of Article 2112 of the Civil Code;

• 3) a company-wide collective agreement, entered into by the trade unions that are comparatively more representative at the national level, providing incentives for the termination of employment, limited to employees who opt into the aforementioned agreement;

• 4) Corporate bankruptcy.

Updates on Parental Leave

Under Article 9 of Decree-Law No. 146/2021, the legislature provides that, through December 31, 2021, an employee with a child under the age of 14 living in the same household may, alternately with the other parent, take leave from work for a period corresponding in whole or in part to the suspension of in-person instructional or educational activities, for the duration of the child’s SARS-CoV-2 infection, as well as for the duration of the child’s quarantine following exposure, regardless of where it occurred. The same benefit is granted to parents of children with disabilities

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