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2022-2023 Federal Budget and How it Affects HR

The continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has seen economic challenges globally, impacting supply chains, increasing cost of materials and skills shortages constraining local businesses. In Australia, with underlying inflation increasing, interest rates expected to rise in response, an unemployment rate of just 4%, its lowest level since 1974, and forecast to drop to 3.75% by September 2022, the journey to economic recovery is far from over.

We have seen these impacts directly constrain our Catalyst Central clients, working together to develop new ways of doing business, managing expenses, reconsidering labour budgets, and implementing revised flexibility models, all to ensure we can implement business frameworks for sustained growth.

The 2022 federal budget focused on economic repair against the benefits of targeted fiscal support. It aims to elevate businesses concerned about rising costs and a lack of qualified labour.

The 2022 Budget: What should HR Know?

The Government’s 2022-2023 Federal Budget introduced several new measures for businesses and individuals. Here are the key HR takeaways.

• From 29 March 2022 to 30 June 2024, the federal government intends to provide a 120% tax deduction for expenditure incurred by small businesses (less than $50 million annual turnover) on external training courses provided to employees.

This means you could receive a $120 deduction for every $100 spent on skills and training, upskilling your workforce to meet future skills gaps.

• The Boosting Apprenticeship Commencement (BAC) wage subsidy scheme has been extended for an additional 3 months, with new apprentices or trainees needing to be signed up by 30 June 2022, to be eligible. The Completing Apprenticeship Commencements (CAC) wage subsidy has been extended to 30 June 2027.

• Building on the success of the BAC scheme, the new Australian Apprenticeships Incentive System (AAIS) will commence on 01 July 2022, providing wage subsidies for priority occupations listed on the Australian Apprenticeship Priority List. Additional is also being made available to women who commence eligible trade occupations.

• In response to the scarcity of labour across Australia, the Government is relaxing certain work restrictions for a range of visas including the Student and Working Holiday Maker (WHM) as well as conditions for industries such as Agriculture and STEM occupations.

• An additional 120% deduction is intended to be made available to small businesses to assist with their digital adoption, assisting to increase efficiencies. This includes business expenses and depreciating assets such as cyber security systems or subscriptions to cloud based services (such as m3.Business) to an annual cap of $100,000.

This means you could receive a $120 tax deduction for every $100 spent on technology.

• The Government will now merge the Dad and Partner Pay (DAPP) scheme with the Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme, providing a combined “Enhanced Paid Parental Leave” scheme allowing eligible working parents to share up to 20 weeks of payments. The change allows couples to mutually access the scheme, sharing the primary care giver role, dividing the 20 weeks of payment between them. In addition, the eligibility criteria has been broadened allowing households to earn up to $350,000 a year to qualify (up from $151,350) for PPL payments.

• Additional assistance will also be provided to families with more than one child under six in childcare and reduce out-of-pocket costs by increasing the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) rate by 30% for the second child, up to a maximum CCS rate of 95%, commencing 11 July 2022. In addition, the Government will remove the CCS annual cap per child per year for families earning between $189,390 and $353,680, commencing 01 July 2022.

If you need assistance reviewing and implementing the new budget measures, including new frameworks, policies, procedures or systems to effectively manage and implement, please contact us at Catalyst Central: support@catalystcentral.com.au