Furlough stats cause concern
ALEADING councillor for business has described figures suggesting as much as a third of the borough’s working population has relied on government financial support during lockdown as ‘massively concerning’.
Data from HM Revenue and Customs showed that the wages of 31,200 workers in the borough had been supported by the Government up to May 31, with 23,800 jobs furloughed as part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and 7,400 self-employed individuals registering for support from the SelfEmployment Income Support Scheme (SEISS).
Coun John Blundell, cabinet member for business, skills and regeneration, said the numbers warned of a looming unemployment crisis, which would have dire consequences for the borough.
Coun Blundell said: “We’ve got 220,000 people in Rochdale and around 103,000 of those are of an age where they are able to work.
“That’s a third of our working population - it’s absolutely astronomical.
“We’re looking at lots of people potentially out of work and it’s massively concerning.”
The government’s furlough scheme is set to close on October 31, with employers able to bring their furloughed workers back on a part-time basis whilst also claiming a government grant for the hours not worked from July 1.
From August 1 and throughout September and October, the level of grant available to employers will be reduced each month from 80% of an employee’s wage to 60%, while employers will have to pay workers at least 80% of their wage up to a cap of £2,500 a month.
Coun Blundell says business owners in the borough have told him that the approaching changes could cause sweeping redundancies and even closure.
He said: “I’ve not had a single business tell me they’ve got that money in the bank.
“Bars and restaurants have told me that they’ll go bust if they can only open at one third capacity, and they’ll certainly have a problem keeping all their staff on.
“The government must think every independent business sits on these huge reserves and it’s just nonsense.”
Coun Blundell added that things could get ‘very, very choppy’ in the borough if government ministers did not deliver their promise to reimburse local authority reserves used to support their communities during the pandemic.
He said: “Some people will come to the council for support but we have been left out to dry.
“We’ve had to support our schools, we’ve had to go into care homes. We have paid the social cost of this virus.”
He added: “We are already a deprived borough and we know what’s coming through is quite serious.
“We’ve got to keep people in work or furloughed at least to push the cliff edge back - otherwise that deprivation will set in for generations.”