SUPERMARKETS FEARED PAYMENTS COULD ENCOURAGE WORKERS TO QUIT LOW-PAY JOBS FOR SAFETY OF HOME

A TOP civil servant warned that setting the Pandemic Unemployment Payment at €350 could “increase the incentive” for people to quit their jobs.

Orlaigh Quinn, secretary general at the Department of Business, told senior civil service colleagues of her concerns at the emergency dole payment for people who lost their jobs as a result of pandemic.

In an email to her fellow secretaries general and Revenue chairman Niall

Cody on March 24, Dr Quinn referred to a meeting a day earlier with Tesco, Dunnes, Lidl, Aldi and Musgraves.

“They made a serious point that if the revised unemployment corona payment is set too high or at the same rate as the wage subsidy, it will act as a disincentive to workers to remain in employment,” she wrote. “Their workers are already just above the minimum wage. Many have childcare responsibilities who have lost their crèche, and many are scared of the virus impact from customers.”

Dr Quinn said that, given the Government’s moratorium on rent/mortgages and the inability to spend money in the economy, “this lower income need could increase the incentive to leave work”.

She said Tesco saw an immediate hit on employment in the UK when prime minister Boris Johnson announced employment supports for workers there.

Dr Quinn said the Government needed to be “very clear” on the messaging about the wage subsidy scheme and the benefits of keeping staff on payroll rather than the PUP.

She said there would be major knock-on impacts on the food processing industry and agriculture workers.

She wrote: “There are a number of potential behavioural consequences here, some of which we may not have considered fully.”

In response John McKeon, her counterpart at the Department of Social Protection, asked if the Government was doing enough to highlight the value of the income taxes foregone as this meant the value of the State contribution was more than €600.