At its last meeting on 26 January 2021, the Economic Committee (Comité de conjoncture), chaired by Labour Minister Dan Kersch and Economy Minister Franz Fayot, took the following decisions:
1. Applications for short-time work for companies closed due to an administrative decision
Enterprises that have to close down due to an administrative order may exceptionally benefit from an extension of the deadline for submitting an application for short-time work for the month of February 2021. To this end, the companies concerned that have not yet submitted an application for short-time work for the month of February may apply for and benefit from short-time work equal to 100% of the total number of hours not worked during the lockdown period. The application must be submitted by 1 February 2021, using the special form chômage partiel lockdown, available on the MyGuichet.lu platform.
Affected companies that have already applied for short-time work for the month of February do not have to submit a new application. They are automatically entitled to short-time work equal to 100% of the total number of unemployed hours during the closure period.
As a result of this extension, the deadline for submitting applications for short-time work for the month of March will be from 2 February to 12 February 2021.
2. 4,393 enterprises have applied for short-time work for the month of February 2021 (compared to 4,212 in the previous month) in order to benefit from the special regulations that apply until 30 June 2021 due to the Covid-19 crisis.
After reviewing the applications submitted, the Economic Committee issued positive decisions to 4,243 applications (compared to 3,896 in the previous month), while the final decision on granting short-time work is resting with the Government Council.
The positive decisions on applications for short-time work for February concern 34,117 employees (calculated in FTEs/full-time equivalents) compared to 32,180 employees (calculated in FTEs) in the previous month.
In addition, the Economic Committee pronounced a favourable opinion on two applications for tax exemption on severance pay under L.I.R. 115 (10). These applications concern five persons.
Finally, the Economic Committee gave a favourable opinion on an application relating to the legal provisions for the adjustment of early retirement.
The next meeting of the Economic Committee is scheduled for 23 February 2021.