Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2021-06-28

Providing relief to the entities in the tourism sector affected by the Covid-19 pandemic

- Approval of the Cabinet has been granted previously to the proposals made by the task force comprising of employers, representatives of workers' trade unions, officials of the Ministry of Labour and the Department of Labour with the objective of providing relief for the continuation of entities affected by the Covid - 19 pandemic and keeping the jobs of workers intact. Accordingly, granting proportionate opportunities so as to ensure that each employee receive opportunity to work, payment of 50% of the basic salary of the month in which the employee last received his full salary or Rs.14,500/-, whichever is more favorable to the employee, in case the employees are asked to stay at home and payment of contributions to the Employees' Provident Fund and the Employees Trust Fund from the salary so paid will be implemented until the end of June 2021. With the impose of international aviation restrictions around the world, it has not been able to keep the tourism sector into normalcy, in particular, and therefore the Cabinet decided to grant its concurrence to the measures taken by the Minister of Labour to further implement the relief measures already granted to the entities in the tourism sector until the end of December 2021 from July 2021.