Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said on Sunday that the government would continue income support beyond the original expiry date for JobKeeper at the end of September.
"There will be some adjustments to the scheme to make sure it is appropriate for the next phase,"he told Sky News.
"The ultimate objective still has to be that we get back into a situation where all businesses are in a position to pay for the wages of their employees out of their income.
"We will need to get ourselves into a new normal situation with businesses right-sizing for the economic context that we are in."
Senator Cormann said the further support would be for employers who were"particularly severely impacted"by the crisis,so they could keep their staff.
The government will adjust the eligibility rules that offered JobKeeper if companies with up to $1 billion in turnover suffered a 30 per cent fall in business and if companies with more than $1 billion in turnover suffered a 50 per cent fall.
"As we get to the end of the six months,towards the end of September,it is going to be important to reassess which businesses still should be receiving this support,"Senator Cormann said.
ACTU president Michele O'Neil called for a bigger federal plan to retrain the unemployed,on top of last week's $2 billion vocational education package,and for continued JobKeeper payments.
"We really want to make sure that this program extends at least for six months,"Ms O'Neil said on the ABC'sInsiders program.
The peak union body,which will release a"reconstruction plan"on Monday,has agreed to more flexible workplace relations rules for employers hit by the pandemic but made it clear on Sunday that these arrangements could not continue if the government stopped JobKeeper payments.
The Australian Council of Social Service is calling for a permanent increase in JobSeeker on the grounds that more than 1 million people are likely to need it and the Youth Allowance benefit all next year and beyond.
ACOSS chief Cassandra Goldie said the government should embrace a"jobs and training guarantee"so people aged 25 years and under could gain a subsidy to do paid work experience and training.
While the new JobSeeker rate is yet to be announced,the Australia Institute modelled a $75 increase in the base rate to a weekly payment of $635 and found this would not be enough for many who have lost their jobs. It estimated this amount would push 505,000 people into poverty.
The Treasurer has named tourism,arts and recreation,hospitality and aviation as the industries facing the greatest hardship,while sectors such as housing,construction,mining,manufacturing and agriculture fare better.
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Mr Frydenberg said there were signs of improvement in the United States and British economies based on his discussions in an online meeting last week with his counterparts from the US,the UK and Canada.
"In terms of the global economic outlook,it’s still pretty grim and the central forecasts from the[International Monetary Fund] are still showing very deep falls,"Mr Frydenberg toldThe Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age.
"Our major trading partners are doing better and what’s interesting is the Chinese economy is starting to pick up."
The Treasurer noted the last quarterly figure from China showed an 11.5 per cent gain in economic output from the previous quarter.
"We haven’t seen a formal stimulus out of China but economic activity is picking up there,"he said.
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