– This is not valid – E24

The government is currently extending the compensation scheme to the business community until April.

FRP Deputy Leader Sylvi Listhaug believes that the government’s proposal to extend the corona compensation scheme for businesses and industries by two months until April is too small.

– This proposal reconfirms that the government is on its hind legs, with short-term solutions. First, they introduce measures that hit businesses hard. Then they come back with short-term suggestions that aren’t good enough. This does not hold.
She says they will demand an extension.

– We will now process the case, but to ensure predictability for both companies and employees, an extension to July 1 is minimal. In addition, it is necessary to improve the scheme by increasing the compensation scheme.

He adds: – We will then be able to assess additional needs in relation to the revised budget processing this spring.

Listhaug says it is unwise for the government to pursue a short-term policy.

– It is extremely stupid to establish a strategy in which the Storting must show the way again and again and take responsibility for as many companies as possible to overcome the dilemma. This is absolutely crucial to saving thousands of jobs that Norwegians across the country can return to when this is over.

– Are you willing to gather a majority behind an extension at least until the summer?

– Yes. We will work with the parties that agree with us on this. We are tired of the short-term policy of the government.

Sp will run until fall

Sp leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum agrees with Sylvi Listhaug that the plan should be expanded.

– We have proposed it before and, of course, we will vote for what has been our own proposal. The scheme should run through the fall to create predictability for companies, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum tells VG.

– But we are also very concerned about extending the rules on redundancies by six months, so that people can be made redundant for 18 months. It’s been nearly 12 months since the crown’s first closing and people are being laid off, he says.

No normal condition in April

– It is absolutely necessary and very good that the government now extends the compensation scheme, but they should have taken the opportunity to extend it for longer, says Ole Erik Almlid, CEO of NHO, to E24.

He doesn’t think businesses will return to normal in April.

– Businesses need predictability and there will be a need for compensation whenever businesses are prevented from operating normally. It will be in April, says Almlid.

Additionally, NHO wants more companies to join the scheme, including startups and growth companies, at the same time that the employers’ organization wants companies to be compensated for more costs and companies to have fewer layoff costs.

Should compensate for infection control measures

– It should only be missing, says Terje Aasland, second vice chairman of the Trade Committee at the Storting and a member of the Labor Party.

– It is still a pity, and it is a pity that the government does not understand the seriousness of business, he says.

Aasland believes the plan is not working well enough. Among other things, he believes, as the NHO leader, that companies should be compensated for infection control measures.

– Infection control measures and financial measures must go hand in hand. If the government introduces a bar stop and recommends closing gyms, companies should also be compensated for the intervention measures, Aasland says.

The Labor Party politician himself proposes a scheme with subsidies based on failures in rotation plus a scheme of valves for all companies that are left out.

Not prepared for the end of the pandemic

– It is positive that they go out and spread, but we think they should have gone further, says Ivar Horneland Kristensen, CEO of Virke, to E24.

Virke believes that the compensation scheme should have been extended into the summer, until what now seems like the end of the pandemic.

– If the government had followed the scenario of the infection control authority during the validity of the measures, the compensation scheme would have lasted at least until the summer. That’s when we see a vaccine situation pulling us out of the pandemic, Kristensen says.

Additionally, Virke wants clearer clarification of the layoff period so companies can have a predictable end to the pandemic and prepare to start over.

– Layoff salary costs must also be included in the compensation scheme, along with inventories that cannot be used. When the government holds a press conference on Sunday that closes a business on Monday, it is not predictable.

In the end, Virke believes that the wage subsidy scheme should continue and be more flexible than before, so that companies can bring back employees towards the end of the pandemic and prepare for a virus-free start-up.