Fewest furloughed staff since pandemic began |
The number of people on furlough in the UK has fallen sharply. HMRC data show that 1.9m people were still on the scheme at the end of June, meaning 590,000 people were removed from furlough over the month. This is the lowest level since the start of the pandemic and half a million fewer than in May. The Treasury said younger people have come off furlough twice as fast as other workers in the last three months, with almost 600,000 under-25s leaving the scheme in the quarter. Tony Wilson, director of the Institute of Employment Studies, says the number of people on furlough has been "dropping like a stone" as the economy reopened, adding that fears of a "rush of redundancies" have been unfounded. Tom Waters, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, believes the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) “has had a very significant impact on job retention.” At the initiative’s peak in May 2020, almost 9m people were on furlough, and since its launch, the CJRS has supported 11.6m jobs in total. Since the start of July, employers have been asked to contribute 10% towards the wages of furloughed workers; this will rise to 20% in August and September. |
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