In its circular of 18 March 2022, the Ministry of Labour provided operating guidelines relating to the changes made by Decree Law no. 4 of 27 January 2022, (hereafter, Decreto Sostegni ter [Support Decree ter]) to the regulations on wage supplements governed by Legislative Decree no. 148/2015.

The Ministry focused on the following issues:

• Starting date of the new provisions: the amendments made by Decreto sostegni ter come into force as of 27 January 2022 and refer to wage supplements starting from that date;
• Disbursement methods and deadline for the benefit reimbursement: the administrative procedure related to the granting of Extraordinary Wage Subsidies – CIGS is carried out electronically through the GIGS on-line application. This allows the employer, who has requested INPS to directly pay workers, to provide the Institute with the employees’ data necessary for the payment of the wage supplement within the legal terms.
• compatibility with the performance of work: the wage supplement is suspended if the beneficiary worker performs fixed-term work for six months.
• joint examination: the joint examination can be carried out electronically, using computer or telephone networks.
• Company reorganisation for transition processes: the company which intends to apply for the extraordinary wage supplement for a reorganisation linked to transition processes must submit a reorganisation programme which specifies the transition measures. These measures can be carried out by planning innovative processes of digital and technological transition, or actions aimed at environmental and energy renewal and sustainability.
• Employment transition agreement: employment transitions are for those workers who cannot be reallocated and are at risk of redundancy after a company reorganisation or reorganisation programme. For these employees, an income support measure is envisaged when the assessment by the company on the need to safeguard employment levels is carried out after the conclusion of the wage subsidy measure. In addition, the workers concerned by the agreement have access to a specific employment service process, called “Percorso 5: ricollocazione collettiva” (Course 5: collective reallocation).
• Conditionality and retraining: the conditionality mechanism applies to workers benefiting from wage subsidies paid by funds (bilateral, wage supplement fund – FIS and local fund). The training and retraining courses offered to these workers must be planned and coordinated with the labour demand in the area. Failure to participate unjustifiably in training initiatives may result in the loss of the wage subsidy;
• Transitional provisions: companies which cannot use CIGS, can access an additional period of extraordinary subsidy, of a maximum of 52 weeks, under certain conditions, and which can be used until 31 December 2023;   
• Canteen and cleaning contractors: Canteen and cleaning contractors can use ordinary and extraordinary wage subsidies, regardless of the subjective conditions of the client company to which they provide their services. Specific clarifications are provided to these companies on the operational aspects to access the company crisis status and solidarity contract;
• Publishing: publishing companies can apply for CIGS when the suspension or reduction of work is determined by the approval of a company reorganisation programme due to a crisis or a company crisis under bankruptcy. The maximum total duration is 24 months, even consecutively. These companies are allowed to use the solidarity contract.

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In circular no. 6/2022, the Ministry of Labour, provided some guidelines on the changes made by Decree Law. no.  4 of 27 January 2022 ( Decreto Sostegni ter [Support Decree ter]), to access wage subsidies for workers during the employment relationship.

The Ministry clarified that companies applying for the redundancy fund for business termination who run out of funding by 2022 can sign a transition agreement to access another 12 months of redundancy fund. During this period, the company must manage the remaining redundancies with active policy actions.

The Ministry discussed the possibility introduced by the Budget Law 2022, for companies that can access the Extraordinary Redundancy Fund (CIGS), of using the “reorganisation” reason to carry out “transition processes.” According to the legislation, the company must prepare a programme which, depending on the situation, can be shared with the Regions or the Ministry of Economic Development (Mise). This programme must outline any investments (without quantitative constraints) in place during the transition process and detail the technological and digital upgrading or ecological and energy renewal and sustainability or extraordinary safety measures.

The Ministry clarified that corporate reorganisation plans must be accompanied by complex measures to deal with inefficiencies in the management or production structure and actions aimed at digital, technological, ecological and energy company restructuring and transitions.

The Ministry stated that the transition agreement favours employment restructuring and is intended for those workers who cannot be reallocated and are at risk of redundancy after a company reorganisation or reorganisation programme.

The company applying for the measure cannot access further periods of extraordinary redundancy fund within the five-year period, which is not yet ended. To obtain the income benefit, the company must (i) have consulted with the trade union, specifying the workers at risk of redundancy for whom the measure is intended and ii) define with the Region the training and re-training actions for the re-employment and self-employment of workers. The personnel covered by the agreement will access a “collective reallocation” process, which will be clarified by Anpal.

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The pandemic has prompted the legislator to identify tools that can help companies and workers overcome the crisis and help companies move towards a new production system.
The legislator, responding to social partners’ long-standing requests, has reformed the social safety nets and intervened on the existing inconsistencies to universalise and rationalise them, govern labour market instabilities and support employment transitions. Among the objectives is widening the range of workers and firms eligible for wage subsidies. The link between wage subsidies, vocational training and active policies has been strengthened.
One of the measures most affected by the reorganisation of social safety nets legislation is the Extraordinary Redundancy Fund, through the significant widening of the range of employers covered by the measure and introducing a new reason.
The “company reorganisation” includes implementing “transition processes”, where employment recovery can be achieved through worker professional retraining and skill enhancement.
An employment transition agreement has been introduced to deal with employment critical situations. Employers with more than 15 employees can be granted
an additional wage supplement for 12 months aimed at recovering employment. During trade union consultation, the parties must define actions aimed at re-employment, such as professional training and retraining, including using interprofessional funds for continuous training.

Continue reading the full version in Italian on Il Sole 24 Ore.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, with circular letter no. 3 of 3 January 2022, provided the first operating indications concerning wage subsidies applied to employment in light of the new introduction of 2022 Budget Law (Law no. 234/2021).

As seen in various circumstances,innovative interventions provided by the law are aimed at building a more inclusive welfare model, including the integration of more effective active employment policies and social safety nets aimed at sustaining targeted industrial policies. 

The new provisions, applied to treatments starting from 1 January 2022, include the following:

• Effective employment seniority requirement: The 2022 Budget Law lowered the effective employment seniority requirement for access to wage subsidies from 90 to 30 days. On this point the circular letter states that:
• in the calculation of “effective work” days – regardless of the type of work hours carried out, and regardless of continuous or previous maturity to the start of the intervention, vacation days, holidays, occupational injuries and mandatory absence from work for maternity leave;
• the requirement in question is not required for access to ordinary wage subsidies treatments (CIGO) accorded for the reason of an event that cannot be prevented in the industrial sector;
• such requirement, for a worker who switches to employment with a subcontractor based on social clauses, is calculated taking into account the period during which the same was engaged in the contracted business.

• Calculation of workers for access to the Extraordinary Wage Subsidy Fund (CIGS in Italian): to provide new criteria to calculate employees to ensure greater inclusivity. For access to this subsidy treatment a threshold of an average of 15 employees in the half year prior to submission date of the application has been established. For this point the circular letter underlines that the following need to be considered in calculating this threshold:
• workers with the position of executive;
• workers at home and trainees;
• workers who perform their jobs with an employee relationship both inside and outside the company as well as external contract workers organised as per art. 2 of Legislative Decree no. 81/2015.

• Job compatibility: The worker – already beneficiary of wage subsidies who performs, during the suspension period or reduction of work hours, employment work of a duration greater than six months, as well as freelance work – does not have the right to wage subsidies for the effective days of work. Instead, wage subsidy treatment remains suspended for the duration of employment, if the employee performs fixed-term employment activity of a duration equal to or less than six months. 

• CIGS reasons: The reasons of reorganisation, company crisis and solidarity contract have been amended and supplemented as follows: 
• Company reorganisation: the reason has been expanded to include company programs “aimed at implementing transition processes” in the same area. The criteria for identification and governance of the regulations of the programs, will be identified in a ministerial decree soon to be adopted.
• Company crisis: with no change to the criteria to access CIGS treatments following the declaration of a company crisis accompanied by a plan with corrective interventions and objectives concretely reachable aimed at continuing the company business and safeguarding jobs; 
• Solidarity: starting on 1 January 2022, defensive solidarity contracts are amended in the sense that the reduction of average scheduled hours may reach 80% of the daily, weekly or monthly hours of involved workers and for each worker the maximum total reduction percentage of work hours can reach 90% of hours over the entire period for which the solidarity contract is stipulated. The novation intervention was aimed at providing an incentive to use the reason.

• Employment transition agreements: the possibility of authorising an additional period of CIGS of the maximum duration of a total of 12 months not renewable is included, if the parties stipulate an agreement aimed at supporting employment transitions of workers at the risk of being surplus at the outcome of reorganisation programs or a company crisis (so-called employment transition agreement). For this purpose use of active policies is planned directed at re-employing the workers through measures of the GOL Programme, or even through equivalent inter-profession funds. 

• Expansion contract: experiments are ongoing on the expansion contract for the years 2022 and 2023 with new financial resources to cover the various planned interventions. The requirement for the minimum limit of employees on staff drops to fifty employees, to be calculated on the whole in cases of stable business combination solely for production or service purposes. 

• CIGS and extra CIGD extra: in company reorganisation processes or cases of severe economic difficulties of a company – within the field of art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 148 – that can no longer use the CIGS treatment protection and with exemption from time limits, an additional period of extraordinary treatment may be granted of 52 weeks that can be used until 31 December 2023, within the limit of the financial resources allocated for each year. Since it can be requested in terms of weeks, the company is responsible for specifying the precise time period for requesting the treatment. 

• Solidarity funds: the field of application has been expanded for solidarity funds already established to employers that only have one employee. The law provides a transitory period until 31 December 2022, by this date the Funds must adhere to the provisions. For failure to do so, as of 1 January 2023, the employers of the relative sector will become part of the wage subsidy fund (FIS) where already paid contributions will be transferred as well as those due by the same employers, for the sole purposes of paying the wage subsidy treatments.

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