If a company experiences a severe economic crisis, the state can step in - through the Federal Employment Agency (BA) - under certain circumstances and cover part of the wage costs. This is to avoid layoffs. Short-time work benefits have proven to be one of the most effective fiscal policy instruments in the past, for example during the 2008/2009 financial crisis . At that time, there was even a double positive effect: on the one hand, this prevented a sharp rise in unemployment, on the other hand, many companies were able to keep their employees busy and lost no important know-how and no trained specialists. As a result, many companies in the upswing were quickly able to ramp up production again. 

So far, companies have been able to apply for short-time work benefits, except for seasonal reasons and for transfer measures, if at least a third of the workforce is affected by a significant loss of work due to difficult economic developments or an unforeseeable event such as a flood.

A rapidly spreading epidemic is also such an event - the Federal Government therefore wants such cases to also qualify for short-time work benefits.

In future, the access threshold is to be lowered: wage subsidies should already exist if ten percent of the workforce is affected by lost work. In addition, according to the decision of the coalition committee, the BA will also pay the social security contributions. So far, employers have had to take over these at least in part. This required a complicated calculation procedure, which meant bureaucratic effort, especially for smaller companies.

Another new feature is that the short-time work allowance should be paid for temporary workers for a limited period. Up to now, a loss of work in temporary agency work and temporary work has been considered an "industry-standard risk" for which the BA does not pay.

The easier access regulations are expected to come into force in April.

The wage subsidy is based on the amount of other wage replacement benefits such as unemployment benefit. 60 percent of the lost net wages are reimbursed for a period of up to twelve months. And if there are exceptional conditions on the entire labor market, the Federal Ministry of Labor can extend the reference period to two years with a regulation.

Employers can simply apply for short-time work online at the BA. Works councils can also report a loss of work here. The employee representatives must in any case be involved in a statement. All necessary forms for the necessary documents and instructions for the application can be found on the website of the Federal Agency .

According to Labor Minister Hubertus Heil, the BA's reserves are intended to finance the measures. They currently amount to 26 billion euros. Heil described it as "the buffer, it is also intended for such cases."

The BA says that for a few days now companies have been asking more about short-time benefits. The number of companies in short-time work has increased anyway, from 4,600 to 5,100 companies . But this was mainly due to economic reasons, which affect the metal and electrical industries, among other things.

In fact, the new regulations for short-time work benefits are only a supplement to the long-planned draft for the Ministry of Labor's Work-of-Tomorrow Act. Because of the corona virus crisis and its impact on the labor market, however, the draft has now been edited a lot. The entire law primarily relates to the structural change triggered by increasing digitization and automation. It is designed to strengthen existing job security options.

Without the epidemic, however, there would probably have been no legislative authorization for the federal government, which is now in the draft law. It allows the government to change the conditions for short-time work - provided that the Bundestag and Bundesrat agree - without further referral to Parliament. This only applies for a certain time. It is now planned that the changed rules will initially apply until the end of the year. Authorization for the government will run until the end of 2021.

No serious projections are available for this question yet. Lufthansa was the first large company to announce that it was in talks with the BA about short-time work. The Federal Agency is currently analyzing across Germany how many companies are affected because of the sometimes considerable restrictions on freedom of movement - be it that orders are canceled due to cancellations of events, customers such as airlines are absent or supply chains are interrupted.