Coronavirus: Support measures for the Basel-Stadt economy - current status

Many applications for financial support because of the COVID-19 measures have been submitted and are being processed by the competent departments.

The Office of Economy and Labour (AWA) has received around 4,500 advance notifications of short-time working. Around 4,300 of these advance notifications have been processed and corresponding authorisations issued. After receiving this reply, businesses have three months to claim the payment from their Unemployment Insurance Fund. The Public Unemployment Insurance Fund has received around 2,000 applications for short-time working compensation, around 65% of which have already been paid, amounting to over 17 million francs.

In addition, Basel-Stadt compensation office has received 4,193 applications for compensation for loss of earnings from self-employed people. It has since been possible to process 2,945 of these. This number does not include applications submitted to compensation offices other than the cantonal compensation office Basel-Stadt. On 16 April 2020, the Federal Council extended the sector of applicants to cover self-employed people who have not had to close directly because of the Federal Government’s COVID-19 measures, but have nevertheless suffered a drop in income.

The Canton of Basel-Stadt set up cantonal support measures for self-employed people indirectly affected by the Federal Government’s COVID-19 measures, on 1 April 2020. A total of 1,200 applications have been submitted since the programme began. 520 have been processed and at least half of these have been paid out.