Yesterday Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the UK’s scheme fund for furloughed employees will continue until October, with the government continuing to fund furloughed employees’ salaries until the end of July. Tara Pilkington brings you everything that you need to know.
While this new may be a big relief for some, unions and Labour are warning that this should not come at the price of redundancies, saying that the government’s extension of its coronavirus furlough scheme should not come at the cost of bosses cutting jobs.
- The furlough scheme, which pays 80 per cent of a workers’ salary up to a £2,500 monthly cap, currently supports 7.5 million jobs and has cost £10 billion so far.
- Mr Sunak yesterday announced that there would be a gradual ‘phasing-out’ from August, as employees are able to return to work part-time and still receive 80 per cent of their salary.
- While Unite the union welcomed the move, general secretary Len McCluskey warned that there should be no rush to redundancies as a result.
- Labour’s shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds urged the government to clarify when bosses will be required to start making contributions and how much they’ll be asked to pay, saying “If every business is suddenly required to make a substantial contribution from the August 1 onwards, there is a very real risk that we will see mass redundancies.”
- This comes as fears rise over the impact of having to make contributions from August could be on severely affected sectors such as hospitality and retail, and UK Hospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls has warned that the government may need to extend the full 80 per cent for some firms in the sector past July.
Unison general secretary, Dave Prentis, has said: “Supporting a part-time return to work from August is a sensible move which gives employers time to ensure workplaces are safe.”
