Furlough to be wound down in July

[Alex50]

We all need to be getting back to work or our jobs and livelihoods are going to disappear.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/05/rishi-sunak-preparing-to-wind-down-furlough-scheme-from-july

[RedAzalea]

Sounds like jobs have already started to disappear!!

I’ve had so many enquiries asking if we are hiring!

[Waxonwaxoff0]

I want to get back to work, but I need childcare. There are many of us who can't do our jobs from home. If they wind furlough down are they going to allow childcare provisions to reopen? This is my main concern.

[duffeldaisy]

Support hasn't even begun for the self-employed yet!!

I suppose this is the way the government continue the 'herd immunity' - force people back out by taking away the support.
July is far too early to lift what patchy support there has been.

[midgebabe]

They are talking of things like reducing the amount paid,

Personally, I'd like to see it continue but very strongly targeted..strict conditions on who can be furloughed

Eg one parent of children aged under 10 where no alternative childcare is possible ( you can'T furlough dad if there is a SAHM)
Pub and theatre staff
?

[PleasantVille]

Personally, I'd like to see it continue but very strongly targeted..strict conditions on who can be furloughed

I agree that stricter conditions are probably necessary to keep the costs under control but I think that it would be hideously unworkable for employers to try and manage staffing taking into account the individual circumstances of employees.

[rosie1959]

It’s not just childcare that affects business
We are a small independent mortgage brokers we cannot work at full capacity because valuers, estate agents etc are not working. Our staff do not have young children but the work or the income is not there to support them. We have had to furlough them but are still making their salary up to full pay
Get the country moving again and we can earn our own income again

[ItsAllForYou]

@midgebabe I completely agree

[ThanosSavedMe]

There are so many areas where people can’t go back to work, to remove the furlough scheme means so many will lose their jobs

[ifonly4]

It's in our contract that parents can take one day off to sort childcare out for their children for whatever reason. Anything else is unpaid, so I'm sure it'll be unpaid leave especially as they'll have to employ qualified agency staff to cover.

[DateandTime]

It's been said that 50% of the adult population is currently being supported by the state, which means that the other 50% are paying for it. I don't know what the answer is but it's fairly obvious that can't be anything other than a very short term solution. Not because it's not "fair" but because the tax revenue simply isn't there to make it possible.

Life is going to get very tough for a lot of people for a long time People talk about the sacrifice of lockdown to save lives but my god it's going to have been a big sacrifice and many other lives will be lost because of it before we come through this.

[kirinm]

This will no doubt please the MNers who think everyone should be grateful and accept UC

Businesses won't suddenly have the financial ability to pay those 100s of people who have been furloughed given that we are still locked up. The winding down of furlough will mean the ramping up of redundancies.

[slipperywhensparticus]

@midgebabe

What happens when the child turns 10? Are they able to care for themselves for 8 hours a day so the parents can work? Because mine is 11 in primary school and like hell is he ready to be left alone

[NailsNeedDoing]

I think this is a good thing. July is still nearly two months away, we can’t go on lie this indefinitely otherwise lockdown will end up doing far more damage to the country than the virus.

[kirinm]

It is absolutely outrageous when you think about it. The job losses that will come from this are entirely of the government's making. Businesses are not allowed to function, childcare facilities are closed for who knows how much longer and then suddenly the support the government offers is withdrawn before anyone has a chance to get back on their feet?

Lockdown needs to be lifted as quickly as possible IMO.

I'm not furloughed. I'm still working but I strongly object to people's lives being ruined because of decisions made late by our government.

[midgebabe]

Yes a ten year old should be able to stay at home and do online schooling /entertain themselves for the day
not consistent with modern ideals but it's not an ideal situation and children used to have much more responsibility and still grew up ok

[thetoddleratemyhomework]

Sadly it is what it is - furlough is unsustainable and some people just want to take government money to sit at home where actually their job is very low risk. We have gone from a situation in which people are not concerned enough about social distancing to one where they are too concerned. I think that the government should have encouraged office workers to work from home 4 weeks earlier and then had looser restrictions on other things - more like Sweden - and focused attention on measures in care homes and for the vulnerable etc (where Sweden's excess deaths are - the young population that are moving relatively normally are unscathed and their excess deaths are really only in the care sector).

Case in point - nannies. If parents are wfh, social distancing from others (ie only one supermarket shop per week and daily exercise), washing hands regularly and giving nanny space (from them, not kids) in common spaces, then risk is extremely extremely low. But on here people are campaigning for people to let their nannies sit at home on furlough money, which actually means middle class people claiming state support for costs that they should be paying. It is immoral to be honest - either you reduce your nanny's risk so far as possible and she comes in or you (not the state) pays her. Anything else is unethical profiteering that the country cannot afford.

Equally I saw on here that one woman would not get her toilet fixed because she had another one in her house. Totally ridiculous. It is entirely possible to have a workman in the house 2m from others, leave the toilet a couple of days and then give everything a good scrub before using it. People have gone mad and expect the government to pay out to reduce even minuscule levels of risk.

[rosie1959]

Kirinm I certainly don’t think this is entirely of the Government’s making
Why on earth do you think they wanted to crash the economy what choice do you really think they had . Carry on and let far more people die I am sure that would be very popular

[SouthernComforts]

I'm not furlough, I've been working from home since the end of March. Between me and my boyfriend, dd's dad and his girlfriend, all 4 of us were either working from home or furloughed so it was easy to juggle dd at home. The last week has seen a big change in employer attitude - all 4 of us are now back working, and from Monday all 4 of us will be working outside of home, no more WFH possible. I've contacted dd's school as I'm classed as a keyworker so hopefully she can go back to school on Monday. My point is the tide is turning and surely the govt will be aware of the shift and the schools will have to reopen to prevent a second wave of job losses for those of us who cannot work with all childcare and schools closed. Before you all tell me that childcare is a furlough reason - my work is so busy they've taken on an assistant for me who needs to be trained on site from Monday, there is no way they will lose a quarter of the company revenue and clients by furloughing the only person who can provide that service to clients, they would have to replace me.

[HandfulOfFlowers]

We have 65% of our workforce on furlough. If it ends in June we will have to make them redundant. Our sector will take years to bounce back.

[Weetam68]

This is the real story you should all be focusing on.

Forget the plandemic, for it has already been exposed for the fraud it always was.

[user1487194234]

I understand people's concerns, but the system is unsustainable, at least in its present form and we need to get the country back to work

[AhGoGo]

I wish people would remember that furlough isn’t this payout of £2500 for everyone. Most people I work alongside are on minimum wage (hospitality, service charge is a massive wage top up). So they are facing 60% of minimum wage? It’s just going to push so many people on universal credit that never even would have considered it before. I’ve worked in hospitality my whole life, never even thought or had to consider applying for benefits because I could always pick up another bar job if needed. That’s all gone now, and gone for a very long time. Same for retail and other generally low paying industries. Furlough or not furlough redundancies are going to be massive until public confidence (and finances) pick up again and there just isn’t going to be the jobs. Universal Credit has never been fit for purpose and really won’t be when furlough stops/drops.

Just thinking out loud really, the whole situation is so hopeless. Even allowing my restaurant to reopen massively socially distanced they won’t even begin to break even. Profit margins were so tight anyway. We have 120 members of staff, how many of them are we going to actually need? Tough decisions for all.

[DateandTime]

Isn't that the reality though Handful? If the jobs aren't there in the long term they're not there. The state can't keep paying for fictional jobs, why should or could those people be compensated differently to other unemployed people?. It made sense short term, where there was a prospect of people returning to their jobs within weeks but not beyond that.

[juicy0]

Most families will have made arrangements for childcare between them for the summer holidays so is it unfair to expect the government to continue full furlough based on the argument that there is no available childcare?
If we are allowed to extend our 'bubble' families can join together and help each other so that parents can return to work. Sadly it's likely that many of us won't be as busy at work and therefore childcare will be less of an issue. I agree that leaving an 11 year old alone for 8 hours isn't ideal but given the number of older students who will remain in the community this summer (who can't go travelling or would normally be working casually for the hospitality or tourism industries) maybe they could be paid to look after younger children. I can think of several family friends with older teenagers who I could approach and I'm sure they'd be glad of the opportunity to earn some money before September when they head to uni or sixth form.

[kirinm]

If the government had taken the threat seriously quickly and hadn't fucked about making no decisions for weeks on end then we may have avoided the extent of lockdown required.

The company I work for was ready to put in place a staff rota so we didn't have everybody working from home at the same time. That wasn't allowed in the end - due to the lockdown - and so 200+ people are furloughed. If we don't go back to work in the office soon and furlough isn't extended what are those people meant to do?