Employers are eligible to apply for wage subsidies in respect of their employees aged 65 or above who have Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) accounts, even if they have not made any MPF voluntary contributions for these employees.

Secretary for Labour & Welfare Dr Law Chi-kwong explained to legislators today that if the employer has provided the mature employees’ basic salary information to the fund trustee(s), the amount of wage subsidies under the Employment Support Scheme will be calculated based on 50% of the basic salaries actually paid to these employees in the specified month.

The wage cap will be set at $18,000 per month per employee, while the maximum wage subsidy per employee is $9,000 per month, Dr Law said.

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The Government estimates that there are currently about 115,000 employees aged 65 or above, whereas the MPF Authority’s data suggests that about 60,000 mature employees have set up MPF accounts.

The Employment Support Scheme will cover 60,000 mature employees, while around 40,000 mature employees will be covered by the various sector schemes which have been, or will be launched under the two rounds of the Anti-epidemic Fund.

Together with the 10,000 or so mature employees under government outsourced contracts whose wages are not affected by the epidemic, more than 110,000 employees aged 65 or above will be covered by the measures mentioned above, Dr Law added.