To SCREAM from the rooftops that furlough needs to be extended at least 6 more months

[Marg33t]

Furlough saves jobs and saves people's health. Why is the extension not announced today?

People are losing their jobs at a rapid rate as it's near to the 30-45 days for consultations for redundancies. It needs to be extended or more people will lose their jobs. Other counties are running it until next year and it makes me feel sick that we aren't protecting and saving jobs!

No point delaying the inevitable or fogging up the numbers. Better to know now who is jobless rather than merely technically jobless so we can start thinking about reshaping the economy. Also, much as I was a very strong supporter of it initially, there are cases of it being abused by employers.

Ok, let me rephrase: the industies who haven’t recovered yet will need significantly more than 6 months to recover.
Travel: most wins are made over summer, so they need at least until july next year
Events: similar
Theater main season is winter, so they will start to earn proper money again next year november, that’s 14 months from now

We can’t afford it, other countries have schemes which are not as generous and a history of high taxation anyway.

What I do hope is that corporation tax for companies who have claimed under the furlough scheme is increased as this would only affect those who made a profit which should have been used to support its workers rather than the tax payer doing it. I would also like to see a an on any dividends from large companies for the same reason. The furlough scheme has been incredibly abused.

You lost me at SCREAM.

Travel, tourism, airlines

Are all industries we've been told for a while aren't doing the planet any good.

And no amount of wishful thinking was ever going to save the "horse industry" once the car was invented.

Anyone else tired of self employed journos. starting threads on social media to sell an article.

I have lost my small business and 2 part time jobs I wasn’t eligible for any help. I have a very small investment income I have had to economise but can manage as DH is working.

I am looking for work and know there is very little out there, it is tough, but we really can’t go on subsidising unviable businesses. There doesn’t seem to be an easy answer ☹️

Absolutely @SerendipityJane.

@vengeancer

We need a new scheme for short working like Germany, where the government pays some of the salary and the employer pays some - it needs to be shared.

it also enables employees to work a certain percentage of the hours. Here furlough is means not working at all (we know now that this has not happened either on many cases).

This is not correct.

I work in a restaurant and am still on furlough but also working. I get paid by my employer for every hour I work but if it is less than my average weekly hours then the government pays 70% of the difference (my employer tops it up to 80%). It's like a safety net. During the EOTHO scheme no one that I work with received any furlough pay because the restaurant was busy enough to give us all plenty of shifts. Since it ended we are all having to rely on the furlough safety net because sales have dropped drastically and concequently our hours have been cut drastically.

YABU, and I'm furloughed and finalising closing my business.
Thirty years of work down the spout, it won't return any time soon.
I'll just claim more tax credits as income gone down.
The gov will pay whatever they do either by funding companies (furlough) or benefits when folks lose their work.
You'll not starve.

Who is going to fund this OP?
In an ideal world yes it would be fantastic. But sadly no, the economy is at breaking point as it is.

There aren’t enough jobs to go round. The economy has contracted significantly. Pushing thousands/millions more people into poverty is in humane and bad for the country. Who will pay the rents? Who will buy the goods in the shops? We need to do something.

I've paid higher level tax since leaving university 25 year ago. I changed my company from limited to being a sole trader just at the wrong time (early 2019), so have fallen through every single crack and had no help at all. I've accepted this, and spent all my savings and am now absolutely on my uppers as work almost completely dried up.

I had no choice but to take on other bits and bobs and diversify to survive. I'm not making much money but I'm scraping a living.

I don't expect any handouts and I've suffered immensely. I think the government has helped enough, and now people have to fend for themselves, with JS and UC as backup.

Life is not fair, life is hard and we are not entitled to being paid for a job that isn't being done.

@MustWe surely that would be best done by creating more jobs, rather than indefinitely supporting those which are likely to dissapear anyway.

End furlough. We need to direct money towards retraining people in new sectors that can grow in the longer term or where there are current shortages (care / green tech / education / high end manufacturing / prison officers ). Money to Further education colleges and other training providers to do that. I have zero faith that this government will do that. They might say they intend to do it, but they will mess it up because they are a bunch of incompetents who ignore 'experts' from sectors who actually do know what they are talking about.

@yelyah22

Everyone saying we can't afford furlough - what do we do about the smaller economy due to businesses folding left right & centre and the enormously increased pressure on benefit budgets and the NHS' mental health service?

If those jobs no longer exist, people will simply have no jobs and no way of getting one. What do we then do, let them starve? I don't mean that hyperbolically - I'm just not sure what we do if not increase borrowing to support people for long term social and economic health, if the other option is to allow thousands of people to go onto UC, which will not sustain their private rents (which are generally unaffordable as e.g. single people or even, in many cases, as two people on UC) or mortgages, when social housing waits are already years in some areas?

Do we rely on the pressure pushing rents down? Because that will destabilise landlords, and still happen far too slowly for some people. Swathes of people will find themselves needing to move to cheaper areas, uprooting families and changing jobs.

We adjust our expectations of life, and play the ball as it lies in a giant steaming pile of shit

Businesses will go bust, and yes people are likely to see a significant reduction in their circumstances.

The State made a choice to #SaveLives - this is the result.

If you don't give a shit about me and my family, it seems a bit of a stretch to expect me to give a shit about yours.

Friend of mine was made redundant in Feb. She was at final interview stage for 4 jobs which were all halted due to lockdown. She missed out on the furlough due to timing but was prevented from working due to lockdown, as she couldn’t find anything. She was able to claim contributions based JSA of £75 per week for a max of 6 months. Thankfully she has found a role now. This is someone who has always paid in. If contributions based JSA has a 6 month cap on it, why shouldn’t furlough? Given that furlough is A LOT more generous than £75 per week.

There should be continued support for industries that cannot operate over the next few months (eg the travel industry, theatre etc). Ignoring this will be absolutely disastrous for these industries. Speaking as a flexibly furloughed travel professional who has also picked up temporary min wage employment, therefore paying tax on my additional salary!
We’re not all sitting around watching Netflix.

@Marg33t

Furlough saves jobs and saves people's health.
Does it save jobs? I think some of each company's furloughed workers should have returned to a workplace with covid-secure measures in place by now.

I think some companies furloughed workers unnecessarily or for longer than they needed to (e.g.Sir Phillip Green).

Some companies weren't viable and were never going to be so shouldn't be allowed to continue to furlow unless the workers will truly return.

Why is the extension not announced today?
Why are you are assuming there will be an extension?

Also as the PM stated, the scope of the announcement was to update on further restrictive measures to be taken in response to the rising infection and hospitalisaton rates.

He hasn't stopped people from working. Employers should be putting measures in place to get you back to work where they can.

It's not just our taxes that are paying, companies now have to uplift the furlough payments to equal 80% plus pay pension contributions and NI for staff. When they're not making any money there is nothing in the pot to do this. Simple economics.

@SerendipityJane

Alternatively we could ask why housing was ever allowed to become a commodity to line the pockets of a few rather than a necessity that every human being should have access to.

We won't, of course, because the few drown out the many.

But it would be a start. Along with realising that you can't have "growth" forever if you want a planet that can sustain your lifeform.

Again, we won't.

So well said

It's all very well saying "those businesses would fail any more , or arent needed"
There are many that cant safely operate at the moment....but are we all saying we never want to go to a concert, theatre, sports match, wedding etc ever again??? Yes individuals can live without these things in the short term and they arent necessities, but it would be bloody dull if we couldnt look forward to any of those in a years time.
The furlough scheme was thought of and implemented pretty quickly and I guess intended as a short term measure. you had to submit no evidence that your business was suffering and was possibly used advantageously by many who didnt need it.

therefore paying tax on my additional salary!

Why shouldn’t you be paying tax? Do you expect others to pay for your use of public services?

Wish that the scheme worked better to target those who actually need the help. Friend of mine is a, 'director,' at her husband's limited company, not that she ever did any work for the company. She is a SAHM, yet took a salary from the company and as she had been getting a salary for past few years, she was entitled to it.

Because there is no money to pay for it and folk need to be working, otherwise we won't have any economy left!