Labour Ministry announces new wage regulations during curfew

AMMAN — Lockdowns imposed by the National Centre for Security and Crisis Management (NCSCM) do not serve as official holidays, as opposed to lockdowns enforced by the Prime Ministry or the Cabinet, the Labour Ministry announced on Wednesday.

Calculating wages will depend on whether lockdowns coincided with the working days or weekend, in accordance with the Labour Law and provisions of Article 10 of Defence Order No.6, Labour Ministry Spokesperson Mohammad Zyoud said. 

When lockdowns fall on working days, full-time employees working remotely and on-site are entitled to receive full wages, provided that the businesses they work for are not listed among the most hit economic sectors, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

On the other hand, listed businesses can deduct an amount not exceeding 20 per cent of wages as long as they obtain workers’ approval and ensure that after-deduction wages do not fall below the official minimum wage.  

Workers who saw reduced working hours and consented to work as part-timers, be it on-site or remotely, are either paid according to their new workload, provided that wages do not fall below the minimum wage set per hour, or paid  50 per cent of their usual wages, whichever is more. 

In regard to workers originally hired as part-time workers, employers cannot reduce wages, the spokesperson noted. 

Zyoud also said that employees who are not assigned any work can receive their full wages, while hard-hit institutions are allowed to cut their salaries by 50 per cent, no less than the minimum wage, adding that there is no need to acquire the worker’s and the ministry’s approval in this case, Petra added. 

Employees on their days off are paid their usual wages, while those assigned additional work on these days are to be paid 150 per cent of their salaries, the statement said, noting that the hourly rate of an employee's overtime during weekly holidays is 125 per cent.

Employers cannot use workers’ weekends to compensate for working days lost due to curfews. Nonetheless, compensations can be in the form of granting a rest period extending a day and a half in exchange for each day of working on a weekend, Petra reported. 

The spokesperson said that not working during curfew can be compensated through dividing working hours over the week, provided that the distributed hours do not exceed 11 hours per day and 48 per week.