Quarantine of the employee’s child: temporary unemployment force majeure corona is possible!

On 6 November 2020, the federal government announced a series of new measures to deal with the coronacrisis. These include the possibility for employees to benefit from temporary unemployment due to force majeure when their child has to be quarantined.

The government also decided to reintroduce, from 1 October 2020 to 31 March 2021, the simplified procedure of temporary unemployment due to force majeure corona for all employers and employees (manual and non-manual workers).

Consequently, all situations of temporary unemployment as a result of the coronavirus can once again be considered as temporary unemployment due to force majeure corona, regardless of whether or not the employer is recognised as an exceptionally hard-hit company or belongs to a sector that was exceptionally hard hit.

For more information, please refer to 'Reintroduction of flexible temporary unemployment due to ”corona” for all companies”.

The simplified procedure for temporary unemployment due to corona force majeure also applies to employees who are absent due to their child’s quarantine.

Consequently, for these days on which he is absent, your employee receives an unemployment benefit from the ONEm/RVA corresponding to 70 % of the limited wage (2,754.76 EUR per month) plus 5.63 EUR per day.

Only the following formalities have to be completed:

• each month you must declare the days of temporary unemployment (Social Risk Declaration unemployment scenario 5), with the code 5.4 for the 'nature of the day' and 'coronavirus' as the reason;
• your employee must submit a - single - benefit application to his payout institution by means of the C.3.2 - WORKER-CORONA form.

Important!

There is currently no legal provision governing the employee's right to receive a temporary unemployment benefit due to force majeure in the event of his child being quarantined. Nevertheless, we advise you to ask your employee to provide you with his child's quarantine certificate and to keep it at the disposal of the services of the ONEm/RVA, in the event of an inspection.

Reminder!

The employee can also be made temporarily unemployed due to force majeure in the following two situations:

• when he is quarantined (see),
• when the institution (school, day-care centre, centre) that takes care of his child is closed because of a measure to limit the spread of the coronavirus (see).

Sources: Council of Ministers of 6 November 2020; ONEm/RVA.