The Federal Government’s JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme is an incentive for businesses to employ additional young job seekers aged 16 to 35. If you hire new employees, you may be eligible to receive payments under the scheme, which is administered by the ATO.

Organisations can access JobMaker for each eligible additional employee they hire between 7 October 2020 and 6 October 2021. If eligible, you can claim JobMaker credits for 12 months (for each new job filled with an eligible additional employee).

It’s important to note that employers that have claimed JobKeeper payments are not able to access JobMaker Hiring Credits for the same period. The ATO has advised that eligibility is at an entity-wide level, rather than related to individual employee circumstances. So, if your organisation claimed JobKeeper 2 or JobKeeper Extension 2 payments, you will not be able to claim JobMaker credits for the same period.

If you believe you may be eligible for JobMaker and need assistance please reach out to your Purpose contact.

We include below some further details around eligibility and payment levels. More details about the scheme are available via the ATO website and there is a useful fact sheet here.

Eligibility

There is quite a bit of detail here of course but in summary, to be eligible to receive JobMaker Hiring Credit payments for a JobMaker period, your organisation must:

• Be an eligible employer
• Employ eligible additional employees (that increase both your total employee headcount and payroll). Also, the employee must have received a Government benefit (from Centrelink) within a certain period before you offered them a job.
• Register (via the ATO portal) for the JobMaker Hiring Credit before your first claim

Payments

Payment amounts are as follows:

• $200 a week – for each eligible additional employee aged 16 to 29 years old inclusive
• $100 a week – for each eligible additional employee aged 30 to 35 years old inclusive

Payments will be made to organisations every three months, in arrears. Participating organisations will need to claim for employees at the end of the relevant JobMaker period (the first claim period is open now and ends on 27 April).