On May 5, the Chief of Staff, based on Administrative Decision 702/2020, updated the Emergency Assistance Program for Labor and Production (ATP, for its acronym in Spanish), allowing the Executive Branch to provide the private sector with financial assistance to meet the payroll. It established that the salary matching (per employee) cannot be higher than 50% of the net salary paid in February 2020 and ruled that financial intermediation companies will not be included among beneficiaries.

These provisions were based on a series of recommendations issued by the ATP Evaluation and Monitoring Committee, which analyzed the case of employees with a single income, deciding that the complementary salary to be assigned as a benefit should be equivalent to 50% of the net salary received in February 2020. The result may not be less than the amount equivalent to a minimum wage, or more than the amount equivalent to two minimum wages. In the case of people with more than one income, the amount established must be distributed proportionally, considering worker salaries in February 2020.

As for the decision not to include financial intermediary companies as beneficiaries, the document explains that “financial intermediation operates relatively normally” as the Committee argued that “this is a sector where the possibilities of remote work are currently among the highest in the economy”. 

Companies with over 800 workers benefiting from the program’s supplementary salary scheme will not be able to carry out certain operations in the capital market for the next two years, including buying back shares or securities in pesos to trade in foreign currency.

The Committee also decided to determine the amount of the supplementary salary for staff working in school or in-company canteens.