Furlough scheme extended by month to keep jobs safe

THE Chancellor has extended a multibillion-pound wage subsidy scheme until the end of June in a bid to protect jobs.

The furlough scheme will run for an additional month, allowing the Government to pay 80 per cent of wages for workers, up to a maximum of £2,500 a month.

Rishi Sunak said the decision was made as a result of the three-week extension to the lockdown, which the Government announced on Thursday. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was initially meant to run for three months to the end of May. The scheme, which has taken time for HM Revenue & Customs to set up since Mr Sunak announced it, will formally launch on Monday.

However, payments will be backdated to March 1.

The initial three months of the scheme had been estimated to cost £30-40 billion.

It is designed to encourage businesses to temporarily “furlough” staff instead of making them redundant.

Last night the Treasury said the month-long extension will allow it to “continue to protect millions of jobs”.

Mr Sunak said: “We’ve taken unprecedented action to support jobs and businesses through this period of uncertainty, including the Uk-wide Job

Retention Scheme. With the extension of the coronavirus lockdown measures, it is the right decision to extend the furlough scheme for a month to the end of June to provide clarity. It is vital for people’s livelihoods that the UK economy gets up and running again when it is safe to do so, and I will continue to review the scheme so it is supporting our recovery.”

Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, directorgeneral of the CBI, which represents 190,000 businesses, praised the Government’s “agility” with the scheme and said its extension would “help protect the economy and prevent unnecessary job losses through this new lockdown phase”.

She added: “This extension means that firms will no longer be forced to issue redundancy notices over the next few days to comply with 45-day consultation requirements, and can instead return to focusing on protecting jobs and their businesses’.

Frances O’grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress said: “Employers must continue to make full use of the scheme to furlough workers and protect jobs.

“There is no reason to make any staff redundant.”

‘Employers must continue to make full use of the scheme to furlough workers and protect jobs’