On 8 April 2020 the government announced a second round of anti-epidemic relief measures worth HK$137.5 billion. Such measures included the HK$80 billion Employment Support Scheme (ESS) (for further details please see "Employers' guide to Employment Support Scheme"), which provides a wage subsidy to eligible employers for six months in exchange for them:
- refraining from making any redundancies during the subsidy period; and
- using the subsidy to pay employees' wages.
Applications for the first and second phases of the ESS ended on 14 June 2020 and 13 September 2020, respectively. On 15 September 2020 the government announced the introduction of a third round of the anti-epidemic fund. The HK$24 billion package will assist specific industries and people who are most affected by the pandemic.
