Furlough until september

[Seesaw121]

Apparently the chansellor is being pushed to furlough until september.
Thoughts?

[userxx]

@Katykitten2 Exactly, it's putting of the inevitable.

[Katykitten2]

As an employer I can tell you that of those furloughed roughly half will be made redundant anyway once the scheme ends. It will take years for the economy to recover.

[trappedsincesundaymorn]

StatisticalSense

Other employers that cannot maintain social distancing with the whole workforce in at the same time will have to use a combination of home working, staggered shifts over a much wider period of hours from early morning to late evening and 7 day working to reduce the numbers of people working at one time

Sadly not all businesses can do that. I can only speak for mine obviously but our work cannot be done at home due to the machinery we use. Also, as a condition of the factory being able to operate, there has been a strict limit imposed as to how many hours a day it can be open as it's very near a residential area. We can only operate between the hours of 7-7 Mon-Fri and 7-12 noon Saturday with no allowance for opening Sundays. In normal times there are about 700 people (production,quality and office staff), on site so what will happen in the near-future remains to be seen. Hopefully something can be worked out to everyones satisfaction.

[StatisticalSense]

Furlough should only be continuing past the current deadline for businesses that cannot reopen, and in a restricted way for businesses that cannot reopen in a way that would require anything like the usual levels of staffing. Hopefully by the middle of July the list of businesses that cannot open to any extent would be restricted to pubs, bars and clubs that don't serve food and large sporting and events venues (and concessions inside such venues), as all other sectors should be able to resume in some way by then. Other businesses that will realistically have to keep staff on furlough for longer would include fine dining restaurants (as the numbers of front of house staff required for take away would be substantially lower than normal), and some shops offering services such as make up demonstrations, but in these cases furlough should only continue on the basis of the business reopening to the greatest extent possible by law (even if this requires adaptations from the normal ways of working). Other employers that cannot maintain social distancing with the whole workforce in at the same time will have to use a combination of home working, staggered shifts over a much wider period of hours from early morning to late evening and 7 day working to reduce the numbers of people working at one time.

[DaisylovesDonald]

@madisonavenue my friend was saying that initially they would probably have alternate rows blocked off as well as seat spacing. Although that sounds like a lot of seats not for sale actually cinemas are fairly quiet most of the time and unless there is a big blockbuster or busy films on Friday/Saturday nights most screens are just not that full. And as there will be limited films being released then they would be showing the same film in multiple screens rather than multiple films with consequently fuller screens. It would of course depend on how many people are happy to go back to the cinema though, but their marketing team has been doing research which indicates a lot of people would be happy to return as long as there were safety measures in place.
Theatres will be harder as although they can do similar in terms of distancing they rely much more on selling out most of their shows to make money.

[MadisonAvenue]

With cinemas though it’s easy to say keep a couple of seats empty between people but what about the rows in front and behind? Quite often, depending on the seating arrangements, there’s not a great deal of room and that’s quite often a problem in the older independent cinemas which are already struggling if they have a multiscreen nearby.

[DaisylovesDonald]

@ivfgottostaypositive I have a friend who works for a cinema chain and she is quite positive about it. They have a lot of ideas for how they can manage social distancing and make things as safe as possible. I love the cinema so I am hopeful they open.

[ivfgottostaypositive]

I think the only people who will be furloughed until September are pubs and potentially restaurants as they've said these will be the last to open. They can't force a business to close and stay closed and not support them

For everyone else they'll be back July 1st if not earlier given that lots of businesses around me are already starting to reopen and bring people off furlough (b&q, Homebase, house builders etc)

Even cinemas can feasibly do social distancing if they keep a chair or two spare between people

[MintyFreshFemale]

@Ariela we are currently open and doing mot’s, just not with all the workforce. We have put messages out on social media and indeed are speaking to our customers. Unfortunately you will always have those that will use the extension as an added bonus, but whose cars are not fit to be on the road. Our Facebook page tells them all how we are implementing the sanitising of their vehicles, contactless payment and collections etc. We really are doing everything you’ve suggested, but in reality to take everyone off furlough means we will be running at a loss. We’ve already done risk assessments and can work safely with extra in the workshop (although jobs will taking longer due to stringent cleaning safety measures), but like many independent garages we can only do so much. All the garages in our area are doing the same, telling people not to wait and beat the rush, but customers who are elderly or self isolating will definitely be using the mot extension.

[Ariela]

@MintyFreshFemale
if that were my business, I would already be preparing for re-opening. I'd look at ways the garage itself could be divided to ensure working at a social distance as best as possible, order in masks and PPE. I'd prepare emails to send to all the people who MOTd with me last year and whose MOTs were due in March/April but have not MOTd, and advise them to get ahead of the rush and get your car serviced and MOTd now as it is estimated we will have an additional xyz number to service and MOT due to running at 1/4 capacity for x months. I'd advise the public of the measures we'd be taking eg offering a collection and delivery service from their door , and/or valeting with a final wipe over with disinfectant spray or whatever.
And if I could get ahead of my competitors by advertising reopening before the government insist I'm sure there's plenty out there would actually prefer their MOT to be done & car serviced now, particularly when you point out you'll be VERY busy as everyone due in before nw for MOT will have to get theirs done at the same time as everyone wanting it done because it is actually due..

What is your employer doing to get ahead of his competitors?

[DBML]

Furlough will be phased out as everything is is phased back in.

The government knows they can’t blanket stop furlough, if they are still saying some industries can’t go back to work.

But, if they say you can go back to work, then it’s going to stop. There isn’t going to be an option to continue receiving furlough for a while instead.

I’ve said before, the government will start to force people back to work. They can’t afford to have us all sitting at home paid. Withdrawal of furlough is how they will do this.

What I doubt they’ll do is tell people they cannot go back to work and then remove the Furlough scheme for them.

www.itv.com/news/2020-05-04/chancellor-rishi-sunak-preparing-to-wind-down-coronavirus-furlough-scheme-but-promises-no-cliff-edge/

Time to prepare for work and redundancies.

[DaisylovesDonald]

Whatever is going to happen will presumably be announced soon, as the last extension to the end of June was announced before the 45 day point for starting the redundancy process. So I’m assuming any extension or variation (or indeed ending) will be announced shortly as we are nearing that deadline again.

[DreamChaser23]

I think they will replace it come July. I saw Sunak do a interview with ITV saying how furlough is not sustainable for a long time and he wants to ease away from it. My guess is either they will reduce the amount I.e. Maximum someone can get is £1200 a month or they will put everyone on UC. Definitely 80 percent of Max 2500 a month will be removing soon. Which would be very sad.

[torthecatlady]

The only information I have read is that the government will not suddenly stop furlough if it is not the right time to. I'm waiting to hear it from the horses mouth though...

I'm on furlough from a very small company. My office has closed as we are unable to maintain SD in our office (too small, we all sit approx 1 metre apart) nor can we work from home. If furlough did suddenly stop, I am almost certain that I would lose my job.

[Olliephaunt4eyes]

If furlough payments are ended before lockdown is ended we'll see mass unemployment not seen since the Great Depression, with all the economic devastation that that entails.

[PersonaNonGarter]

I think the government will start paying people TO WORK. That is, you open your socially distancing cafe and can only take 20 covers where before you’d have taken 60. It is OK because the furlough scheme is supporting this.

So it’ll be govt supporting wages directly - but only of people at work.

[Polydolly7]

I think they will for the industries that can’t open. Airlines, hospitality, entertainment etc.

Depends when they plan to send kids back. Kids off school means people can’t work especially if grandparents can’t help.

[SudokuBook]

Sorry meant to say yes, agreed @MadisonAvenue

[SudokuBook]

Something also needs to be put in place for people who have been told to shield.

[MadisonAvenue]

Something also needs to be put in place for people who have been told to shield.

[SudokuBook]

Same applies for people who’s workplaces are closed by the government @widow

[gubbinsy]

@BlossomCat me too. Don't know when we will be able to re-open bi certainly not soon. A phased approach to extending furlough is something that will go a long way to supporting the entire industry's survival. We're going to be among the last group able to 'get back to normal'