Employees for the purposes of the COVID-19 Support Payment (CSP)

Eligibility for the CSP was based on whether the applicant carrying on a business or organisation that met the criteria to apply. Eligibility was not based on employee numbers.

However, the number of employees did matter when working out the CSP amount. The number of employees a business or organisation had was measured at the time the business applied for the CSP.

A person was an employee if, at the time of application, both of the following were met.

• The person was the applicant's employee and not, for example, an independent contractor.
• They 'regularly worked' for the business. In other words, they were actively involved in the business day-to-day.

The number of hours an employee regularly worked helped work out whether to claim them as either a:

• full-time equivalent worker (20+ hours a week)
• part-time equivalent worker (up to 20 hours a week).

Employees on leave

An employee could be claimed even if that employee was on leave at the time the business applied (for example, on sick leave, annual leave, or parental leave). In such circumstances, the claim for the employee was based on the number of hours each week that the employee regularly worked when they were not on leave. For example, if the employee regularly worked 20+ hours per week (when they were not on leave) they could be claimed as a full-time equivalent worker even if they may be on leave at the time of application.

Employees on ACC

If the employee was on ACC at the time of application, they could still be claimed. In such circumstances, the claim for the employee was based on the number of hours each week that the employee regularly worked when they were not on ACC. For example, if the employee regularly worked 20+ hours per week (when they were not on ACC) they could be claimed as a full-time equivalent worker.

Self-employed people

If a person was self-employed (that is, an applicant working as a sole trader for yourself) they could claim for themselves as an employee.

Shareholder-employees

A company that applied could claim for the shareholder-employees that regularly worked for the company (that is, those shareholder-employees that were actively involved in the day-to-day business) as being employees for CSP calculation purposes, whether or not the company had paid the shareholder-employee a salary in a particular year. For example, the applicant may have been in a growth stage and they may not have yet paid the shareholder-employee a salary if they were retaining capital within the company.

Not-for-profits

Not-for-profits will often have volunteers, as opposed to employees. In this instance, the not-for-profit could apply for the base payment only if they had no employees. If they had employees, they could claim the base payment and the number of employees.

Commonly owned groups

A member of a commonly owned group could claim those persons that regularly worked for them as being employees (for CSP calculation purposes). This is the case even if the person was legally employed by another member of the group at the time. Please see the guidance on our commonly owned groups' page for the circumstances when a member of a commonly owned group could claim a person as an employee for the purposes of the CSP calculation.  

Commonly owned groups