WINNIPEG – Premier Brian Pallister is prepared to pay qualified people to go back to work.

Direct payments of $500 per week to a maximum of $2,000 over six weeks are possible.

“The Manitoba Job Restart program could help bring tens of thousands of Manitobans back to work safely and help our economy recover,” said Pallister. “The federal government is currently subsidizing the wages of more than eight million workers in Canada through the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB). While these programs have helped Canadians through financial challenges caused by the pandemic, CERB has become a barrier preventing some from returning to work.”

Program participants must voluntarily stop collecting the CERB or CESB from Ottawa.