Furlough scheme set to be extended to September (at reduced 60 percent rate)

[DreamChaser23]

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/05/10/job-retention-scheme-set-extended-september/

An announcement is likely today or tomorrow.

Thoughts?

I think 60 percent is an impossible amount to live on. Not to mention not everyone can go back to work (i.e. no social distancing measures), (the business is still shut) A lot more people will still struggle month to month.

Knowing the Tories I wouldn't be surprised if month by month they reduce furlough from 60 to 40 then eventually getting rid of the scheme...

Dd works in a bar. I do feel really sorry for all the staff who aren’t allowed to work. Unessential retail, restaurants, cinema staff, etc. It does feel unfair that the govt have said they can’t work but then they’re not compensated.

60% is better than nothing

@WorraLiberty

Yes childminders will be open.

The comments about furlough being reduced to persuade people to go back to work from some posters is bad! It makes me so mad!

I’m furloughed because I work in hospitality, the government have closed my work place, the government have made that decision so they need to pay my wages or a decent percentage of them. I want to go back to work, I’m not lazy, I’m not a scrounger , I love my job and have done it for the last 18 years. If everyone who worked in hospitality jumped ship and got new jobs who is going to work when pubs and restaurants are allowed to open?

Maybe the government should shake the magic money tree and pay everyone 100% forever! 🙄

The furlough scheme will be a financial noose round younger generations necks for a long time as it is, let’s moan it’s going to be reduced...

Some papers are reporting the changes will be announced tomorrow and that the scheme will pay 60% up to the end of September.

i'd rather hear it from the horsrs mouth than the papers or some social media shite.

Have people really been unaware that life can change in a heartbeat? Anyone of us could find our lives changed any time we get into our car. Lives are changed for lots of people every single day. The only difference now is that we’re all facing shit at the same time.

If I were furloughed my biggest worry would be that my job will disappear completely. So many jobs will be found to be unnecessary as we emerge from this.

employers having to make more than 100 of their employees redundant when the current furlough scheme ends at the end of June , will have to start redundancy consultation next week

Absolutely - so why not extend it a month at a time if they must, while keeping an eye on the case/deaths figures which are dropping all the time and the effect that should have on returning to work?

"Do we know if this is Wales too?"

Most likely. Benefits and income tax aren't devolved.

@Puzzledandpissedoff the redundancy consultation period is 45 days so if furlough was done on a month by month many companies would make huge swathes of their workers redundant straightaway so they don't miss the consultation period.

Someone I know is still working but on furlough level pay. The employer furloughed all but two staff (other than owners/bosses) and kept two working, with slightly different shift patterns, and paying them 80%. If they ask them to keep working those hours at 60% I think it's going to be below minimum wage.

“I'm 6 months pregnant so doubt I could safely work anywhere or would anyone take me on. I'm also single so don't have a partner to rely on..”

Given your situation then surely you planned and have savings? Otherwise you have been irresponsible to get yourself into this situation. Why are you expecting the tax payer to bail you out? Having children is a choice.

And, this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but the vast majority of people should have some savings for exactly what this is, a rainy day. Not everybody will be able to afford to save, of course, but everyone who's had a holiday abroad in the last year, or bought or financed a brand new car rather than an old one, or who has major house renovations, or plastic surgery, or brought the biggest house their mortgage will stretch too, or even expensive haircuts, has deliberately chosen to spend their money on that rather than save the recommended six months - a year of their salary to give them that safety buffer.

This isn't a government recommended amount. Government policy doesn't allow people to keep those sorts of savings, it makes people run them down in order to get support and then doesn't ensure wages that would allow people to build them back up.

Since the furlough scheme is government policy, a policy based on an expectation of savings that the government knows its population doesn't generally have and that the government has taken no steps to encourage is not one that meets its population's needs and, further more, is a pretty cynical way to support the better off population at the expense of the worse off.

The situation stinks, but the government is not responsible for you staying at home anymore than you are. They didn't bring/ invent/ create Covid anymore than you did. Any and all help given from them is a bonus. More than half the world which is in the same situation as us are getting no help at all. We live in a country where there is an expectation that someone will catch us if we fall. We are soft, we have an entitlement factor that we are owed by our very being here by our society. Stuff happens to everyone, life isn't fair or easy. The government is not a bottomless money pit, nothing is free, all the money will have to be paid back in tax for decades to come.

if furlough was done on a month by month many companies would make huge swathes of their workers redundant straightaway so they don't miss the consultation period

Not if they'd got any sense; anyone who employs a decent team's unlikely to want to lose them and face the costs of recruiting again, and if they genuinely know already that redundancies will be inevitable I'm not sure how dragging it out will help

It's true that observing the end of the consultation period's an issue, but that's just one more deadline and can be managed by anyone with capability

60 % of minimum wage is not enough to live on . I guess loads of people will now be entitled to housing benefits and tax credits that they weren't entitled too before

I would like to see furlough levels protected for the low waged - but for those living a high income lifestyle while expecting to be paid to sit on their arse... have you considered taking some ironing in?

@tazsyd thank you for that enlightening opinion , I do have savings and I have saved for my child but unfortunately I didn't expect my partner to walk out on me. My outgoings are also nearly all of my wage , it's a little hard to save a huge amount on so little.

I pay tax and have done since I started work , so excuse me if the government closed down my place of work and forced me into furlough. I cannot work anywhere else as my contract prohibits it , having children is a choice but being furloughed due a pandemic wasnt

Expecting not to be starving and destitute as a result of a global pandemic is nothing to do with a culture of 'entitlement'. And seriously, people holding up other countries' shitty examples of leaving their citizens high and dry in the middle of this as some sort of bullshit compassion barometer can fuck off. Are we getting more help than the US or Brazil? Yes. What does that mean? Fuck all.

Furlough was already far too generous to begin with. Up to £2500 p/m was far too high.

The only people who should be getting furlough after June are those who are vulnerable or shielding. Everyone else simply needs to go back to work and start contributing. I cannot sympathise with those who have had months of relative safety when others have had to work through the peak of the pandemic with little to no PPE or workplace safety measures.

Yes, it's shit that your workplace is 'dangerous'. But I highly doubt it's anymore dangerous than Tesco or a Covid ward. Your workplace has also had months to plan ahead and put measures in place- a luxury those in the retail sector, for example, didn't have. They just had to muddle on through while half the population acted like feral animals over toilet rolls and pasta.

Anyone who genuinely thought they'd remain off work on close to full pay until next year/a vaccine, was sadly, incredibly deluded.

(And yes, I know I sound fairly pissed off in this post, and it's not that I don't sympathise, but there's just been far too many posts on here of people laying into key workers for x, y and z. I think it's about time these people realised how utterly unreasonable they were being, and learned for themselves what it's like to work in a risky environment and struggle to carry out your job safely. And, on top of that, have members of the public laying into you for every little 'mistake' you make).

Well it had to end, you couldn't genuinely expect the government to bank roll business for months and months on end.

You can source a second job when on furlough, and for those saying it's difficult, yes imagine how difficult it will be to get a job if we have a major depression!

Furlough was far too generous, housing costs and a UC income is what should have been offered.

It's actually not true that financial support during CV19 will inevitably have to be paid back by higher taxes in the future.

Even if it was, it could be recouped from higher tax payers (including those with off shore accounts) and they'd still have plenty of money.

The global financial crisis was a crisis not a catastrophic disaster because governments used quantative easing. It's an extraordinary monetary policy for extraordinary times when usual policies are failing.

The ONLY reason that this isn't on the table is ideological. That is also the only reason that the UK has had 10 years of 'austerity'.

One of the early CV19 cabinet statements, I think about wiping out NHS debts said that 'this wasn't the time for ideology'.

There we had it. The lie of the past 10 years being exposed.

Yeah it's really fucking generous. I'm currently getting £180/week out of which I have to pay for everything.

My company didn't give us a choice. Not sure why you're ignoring that point.

Stretchedmarks um, what about people who can't go back to work because their workplaces aren't allowed to be open, or they're SE and work in places that aren't allowed to be open?

Housing costs and UC would be around the same as 80% of most peoples' income.

How would that be any different to furlough?