A New Relief Measure During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Hong Kong SAR Government Launches the Employment Support Scheme:
Anti-epidemic Funds
In the midst of the 2019 Hong Kong protests the Government announced multiple funding packages to help deal with the negative economic impact. These packages totalled around HK$9 billion and aimed to help the tourism, retail and hospitality industries, as well as low income households and job seekers.
Now, we find ourselves amid the COVID-19 pandemic and those previous stimulation packages seem to be a mere drop in the ocean causing the Government to take further and unprecedented measures to ensure the economy can survive. On the 8 April 2020 they launched the second round of anti-pandemic funds with a total value of HK$137.5 billion (4.8% of Hong Kong’s GDP!) to ensure that some 1.5 million workers continue to get paid.
Part of these measures include introducing an HK$80 billion Employment Support Scheme (“ESS“).
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