By the end of the UK's job retention scheme, which ran from April 2020, to September 2021, approximately **** million jobs, from *** million different employers, were furloughed in the United Kingdom. The day with the most jobs furloughed at once was May 8, 2020, when **** million jobs were on the job retention scheme. The scheme, introduced in response to the economic damage caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, covered ** percent of an employees' usual monthly wage, up to ***** British pounds a month. How much did the scheme cost? The UK government spent approximately ** billion British pounds on the job retention scheme. Due to spending commitments such as this, as well as depressed revenue sources, UK government finances took a severe hit in the 2020/21 financial year. Government borrowing was approximately ***** billion pounds in 2020/21, while government debt as a share of GDP shot up from around ** percent in 2018/19 to almost ** percent by 2020/21. Getting this debt down has proven difficult in subsequent financial years, with high inflation, war in Ukraine, and the Cost of Living Crisis putting even more pressure on public finances. Popular scheme not enough to save Sunak Former Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, held the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer throughout the duration of the furlough scheme. While this scheme and Sunak himself were popular for much of that time, Sunak saw his popularity tumble. Shortly after succeeding Liz Truss as Prime Minister in October 2021, Sunak was seen by ** percent of people as being the best person for his job, but by May 2024, just before he announced the 2024 General Election, just ** percent of people thought he made the best Prime Minister. Sunak and the Conservatives went on to suffer a historic loss at this election, winning just *** seats, compared with the *** won in the 2019 General Election.

The job retention scheme in the United Kingdom ended on ******************, with approximately **** million jobs still on furlough at its conclusion. In ******** the number of jobs furloughed peaked at over *** million. As a cumulative total there were around **** million jobs furloughed in the since the introduction of the scheme in **********.

Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and government restrictions in the United Kingdom, 83 percent of business leaders within the eating and drinking out sector had to furlough over 90 percent of their staff in 2020. Only one percent of survey respondents did not have to temporarily dismiss any of their employees.

Over **** million jobs in the United Kingdom's wholesale and retail sector were furloughed on the UK's job retention scheme between April 2020 and September 2021, with a further **** million thousand accommodation and food services jobs also furloughed. These two sectors were the most vulnerable to the UK's Coronavirus lockdowns, with manufacturing and administrative support work also haivng relatively high numbers furloughed.

An overview of the similarities and differences between the fortnightly BICS furlough estimates and HMRC’s CJRS data, over the period 1 May to 31 July 2020.

In January 2021, approximately **** million jobs in Europe's three largest economies were being supported by temporary employment schemes, with the UK's job retention scheme supporting approximately **** million jobs, France's Chômage partiel scheme *** million, while *** million workers were on Germany's Kurzarbeit system. Although some of these partial employment mechanisms were already in place before the COVID-19 pandemic, their usage accelerated considerably after the first Coronavirus lockdowns in Spring 2020. How much will this cost European governments? Early on in the pandemic, European governments moved swiftly to limit the damage that the Coronavirus pandemic would cause to the labor market. The spectre of mass unemployment, which would put a huge strain on European benefit systems anyway, was enough to encourage significant government spending and intervention. To this end, the European Union made 100 billion Euros of loans available through it's unemployment support fund (SURE). As of March 2021, Italy had received ***** billion Euros in loans from the SURE mechanism, and is set to be loaned **** billion Euros overall. Spain and Poland will receive the second and third highest amount from the plan, at **** billion, and ***** billion Euros respectively. What about the UK? The United Kingdom is not involved in the European Union's SURE scheme, but has also paid substantial amounts of money to keep unemployment at bay. As of January 31, 2021, there had been more than **** million jobs furloughed on the UK's job retention scheme. By this date, the expenditure of this measure had reached **** billion British pounds, with this figure expected to increase further, following the extension of the scheme to September 2021.

At the end of the job retention scheme in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2021 there were ***** thousand females and ***** thousand males still on furlough with a further ** thousand people of unknown gender also covered by the measure.

On September 30, 2021, at the end of the job retention scheme in the United Kingdom, there were approximately ***** thousand people aged between 35 and 44 still furloughed, the most of any group. Since July 2020, the age group ** to ** has consistently had the most people on furlough, with over *** million of this age group on the job retention scheme at the start of that month.

As of November 21, 2021 approximately *** million PAYE employers in the United Kingdom had used the government's job retention scheme, providing a cumulative total of **** million individual jobs.

The indicators and analysis presented in this bulletin are based on responses from the new voluntary fortnightly business survey, which captures businesses responses on how their turnover, workforce prices, trade and business resilience have been affected in the two week reference period. These data relate to the period 6 April 2020 to 19 April 2020.

According to a survey of nearly ***** businesses in the United Kingdom in the beginning of ********, real estate employees were less likely to go into partial or furlough leave compared to the average for all sectors in the United Kingdom (UK) as of ********. Additionally, they were more likely to work remotely. Approximately **** percent of the real estate workforce worked remotely instead of their normal place of work, compared to **** percent of the UK workforce.

Composition and wage growth of job changers and stayers, including analysis of different types of changers and the impact of furlough, UK, 2021. Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.