Has anyone actually been paid through furlough pay?

[Kayzarimya1]

My employer is currently looking at the furlough scheme to pay us, but it’s taking so long. Has anyone actually been paid yet from the scheme? And is anyone on a zero hour contract... how are they working out your wages? This is all so confusing....

Most wages are being worked out from February, I think, although I wasn't paying full attention... Martin Lewis definitely talked about that.

The scheme will be up and running for employers to claim by the end of April, hopefully it'll pay out quickly after that.

zero hours will be based on average earnings a year ago, or an average of the past 12 months (or however many months working if less than 12)

Ah thanks Clouds

As clouds said re zero hours contracts/agency workers.

You should be paid as normal (assuming they have the funds) by your employer and then they claim back from the govt. The govt website for claiming back will not be operational until end April so let's hope your employer has the funds to run a payroll. If not I don't know what happens as I haven't seen anything published that answers this question.

My employees will be paid even though I have no funds coming in and frankly do not know if I'll have a business at the end of all this.

Hard times for everyone.

We've just put some staff on to scheme as of today - we'll (fortunately) be able to pay them this month even if can't yet get the actual cash from govt. I know not all businesses will have cash flow to do this, but many will. (And I know some of our suppliers are not paying us, in order to preserve cash to pay their workforce - not great for us of course, but hopefully means their staff will get paid even if furloughed)

The scheme is not available yet, it won't be until the end of April at least. My employer is paying us out of pocket and then claiming it back when it is available but some employers won't have the funds to do that.

The scheme is not up and running yet, they are saying end of April at the earliest. So employers need to pay staff wages in the meantime and then claim it back. I imagine there will be employers who cannot afford to do this, there is a business support grant they can claim for this but again, not sure if/when it’s up and running either.

I stopped work two weeks ago as the business can’t trade under the current restrictions and I have no work to do. My employer is only able to pay me for the two weeks I worked in March, not for the whole month. And then from this point onwards I will just have to see if the furlough payment materialises.

Lots of my friends seem delighted to be furloughed on 80% pay and not at all worried that being furloughed means you are most at risk of redundancy.

Until any money appears from the government I am quite worried. And also worried what happens when the government decide to stop the scheme.

There’s a lot of large multi million pound businesses out there who can still afford to pay their staff full pay to stay at home during the crisis, but they will probably take full advantage of the 80% pay scheme if businesses are not properly tested to prove that they have no work or income at the moment.

@Paddingtonthebear
Lots of my friends seem delighted to be furloughed on 80% pay and not at all worried that being furloughed means you are most at risk of redundancy
Would you , or someone, please tell me how/why being furloughed puts you at most risk of redundancy, thanks!

Does anyone have an clear advice for employees trying to get furlough instead of redundancy. Apparently my DP company doesn’t have the cash flow (but did make millions in profits last year!)

Is there a way for my DP just to wait for the government to pay the company furlough even if that’s June as with redundancy he’ll get less than a grand as he only started a couple of months ago.

The whole purpose of the scheme is to reduce redundancies and to avoid people being laid off without pay.

Although the purpose of the Job Retention Scheme is to avoid redundancies, sadly things may change. There is nothing to prevent furloughed employees from being made redundant.

I was put on furlough yesterday. So I get normal pay up to the end of March and now move on to govt funding.
I think our co will have to pay the £2500 upfront and then claim it back. We’re lucky the company has good cash flow.

The scheme is designed to support employers whose operations have been severely affected by coronavirus. Employees who therefore have no work to do are at risk of being made redundant.

If / when things go back to normal, hopefully businesses will be able to pick up where they left off and employees will keep their jobs.

If businesses are unable to go back to “normal” soon, there may not be a job to go back to.

Therefore, if you have been furloughed it’s because you are not an essential worker to the business, or there is no work for you to do, or the employer is unable to carry on trading at this time. All of those things mean your job is at risk, at the moment. Obviously if the gov are going to step in and pay 80% wages for months on end then we might all be ok and businesses may survive. But if they stop the funding after a few months a lot of businesses won’t survive.

@Cv19

Employees can’t decide, it’s up to the employer if they want to furlough staff and claim the 80% or not.

Thanks I get it now. I doubt my employer will pay out of own pocket so I guess will have to wait until end of April to get some pay. Tight month ahead

I work for a very small business so I am worried if they will recover after this. They have no income at all currently.

My friend works for a large corporate who have staff on full pay but at home not working. I wouldn’t be worried about my job if I was her because her employer is obviously financially very stable.