The Saskatchewan Government released yesterday afternoon that they will be doing more to support some essential workers financially.

They say lower-income essential workers in several industries will receive $400 per month over four months. The employees must earn less than $2,500,

Those industries include public and private senior facilities, licenced childcare facilities, group homes run by community-based organizations, emergency shelters run by community-based organizations, as well as emergency shelters and transitional shelters.

Any employees fitting those criteria are eligible.

The subsidy is said to cost $56 million, $53 million from the federal government and $3 million from the provincial government.

An estimated 3,500 people are covered by the plan and its benefits in Saskatchewan.

When asked why other essential workers such as grocery store employees were not included on the list, Finance Minister Donna Harpauer said that adding more private or retail sector employees would increase the amount of money given out substantially.

“Then you’re looking at double or triple the numbers of employees that we would have to find, and that becomes then, a far more costly program than even the federal government was willing to pay for.”

She also added that keeping track of when employees would be working would also be a problem they would encounter if they added other workers.

Harpauer added that while the plan’s intentions are set on retention of employees, they have seen high numbers of that in the private sector since the pandemic began.

“Fortunately in Saskatchewan, and we do have a number of private care homes for our seniors, we have not had any evidence of workers walking off, which is very fortunate for Saskatchewan.”