PPP Loan

Hi, Kphelan2018. 

First off, good for you and your business, that it is thriving during these tough times. As far as using the PPP loan to hire new employees, that is an excellent questions. What I was able to find is that if you do hire new employees or rehire those who have been laid off (which you can do), everyone must be paid at the same rate as in the payroll documents submitted for the loan. You run the risk of losing loan forgiveness by doing this, you'd have to judge and determine to be worthy of taking the chance.

Here's a helpful pamphlet I found from the SBA that touches on what you mentioned. 

- PAYCHECK PROTECTION PROGRAM (PPP) INFORMATION SHEET

If you have any other questions, feel free to post below. 

Thank you and have a lovely evening. 

As I read it, and heard in a town hall, you could have laid off everyone and hired replacement staff and meet the requirements. Ideally you rehire those laid off but people get new jobs or move or whatever. It is the number of employees and the total pay that matters. You cannot reduce the pay of existing employees by more than 25,% but you can hire new staff at lower rates.  Say an employee earning 100k dies on you, you can replace him with 2 new at 50k each

You would need to contact your local (city) SBA Loan provider.  It's a complex question, depending on your payroll, head count before the COVID 19 shut down, and head count the day you received the PPP Loan (going forward).  Good Luck!