In special situations you can have your staff work shorter hours. For example after a fire, flood or outbreak of an epidemic. Such as an outbreak of the SARS virus, the EBOLA virus or the new corona virus, as a result of which your staff can temporarily or less be deployed. You can apply for working time reduction and unemployment benefits for your staff (This does not apply for 0 hour contracts, zzp and interim employees.) if you meet the conditions.

Apply for a short-time working permit

You can apply for a permit to shorten working hours at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW).

If needed we can support you with this.

In any case, you must meet the conditions:

  • Your company is affected by a special situation that does not fall under the normal entrepreneurial risk.
  • You expect at least 20% less work for a period of at least 2 to a maximum of 24 calendar weeks.

In principle, an exemption is granted from the date on which the application for a reduction of working hours is submitted. The permit is valid for a maximum of 6 weeks.

In any case, a license will not be issued:about the periods prior to the date on which the application for exemption was received at the Ministry

  1. Insofar as the number of employees is not in line with the reasonably expected need for the company
  2. If the reduction in activities is related to a strike.

Have you submitted an application ? Via Mijnzaak you can see who the person handling your request is, or you can contact the person handling it directly. You will find the login details for Mijnzaak in the confirmation of receipt of your request. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment tries to process applications as quickly as possible. The more complete the application, the faster the ministry can process it.

Renewal permit

Is there no improvement in your company after the permit has expired? Then you can request an extension of the permit. The working time reduction may not exceed 24 weeks in total.

Applying for unemployment benefit for staff

You must report the receipt of the short-time work permit to UWV immediately . After reporting and after the permit period has expired, you can apply for unemployment benefits for your staff at UWV.

Pay attention : For the employer portal you need the so called EHerkenning confidence level EH3 or higher. An identity check is mandatory at this level. This means that you must show a valid ID during an appointment with your supplierUWV pays unemployment benefit to employerUWV then reimburses the hours that the employees did not work during the permit period.

This only applies to the hours for which you have a permit. If your employees meet the conditions, UWV will transfer the unemployment benefits to you. So you pay less labor costs, while your employees remain fully employed. Your employees will remain employed by you. Usually they do not notice much of the reduction in working hours financially: they simply receive their wages.To apply for the so called E-Herkenning in this link you find a multiple of suppliers (we ourselves use Digidentity)