Who’s on furlough now?

[Etinox]

I was surprised to hear that there are still 1.9 million people on furlough! Who’s that then? Night economy’s open- is it the self employed/ creatives?

One of my friends who is cabin crew is still on furlough, but like you I was surprised at the number!

Yeah it’s a lot of people.

(those figures are before 19 July but I’m guessing sector split hasn’t changed all that much with who’s left)

Engineering company here who has primary markets in aerospace and cosmetics industry. You can imagine what our order book has been like! Many of our customers are still running restricted production lines as social distancing and other covid measures mean they can only have eg 2 instead of 4 so they don't need the same amount of tooling. There is also an over-riding reluctance from 'high up' in companies to place orders for new projects in case we get locked down again in a couple of months. The furlough scheme saved our company's life - we still have 25% of the workforce on full furlough and the rest on flexi furlough. Not sure what we will do in September as we don't have enough work for everyone.

Maybe people employed in the holiday industry as although a few are going abroad many aren't, like ourselves as it seems a lot of bother.

Dh company is a cinema chain. It still has some people on furlough and flexi furlough. Yes they’re open again but they’re still nowhere near as busy as they were before. I am still terrified they will end up going under. Hopefully we really do have everything under control this time….. but the problem with the cinema industry is that many countries, mainly the US, need to be in a good place for things to be working smoothly and big films to be coming out.

is it the self employed/ creatives?

Anecdotally I don't think so... I'm self-employed and work with a lot of creatives - the creatives have worked throughout, it's been manic. Most self-employed people couldn't access support through furlough.

The last data that I found was mostly the travel industry (cabin crew etc), and entertainment industries - near me, there's a lot of smaller shops that aren't open, pottery shops, soft plays, little cafés that do shows for kids... I guess the places that need to be pretty full to be profitable.

That said, furlough is down to 70% this month and ends in 2 months, so I guess some businesses have tough decisions coming up.

The self-employed were never on furlough at all, in fact there was absolutely no support available for millions of them.

Thank you so much, really interesting to see the breakdowns.

Officially on furlough interesting figures. Being paid and not doing useful work, most of the cabinet.

I work in a small business and I'm still furloughed. I suspect anything where the owner can do most of the work and employees are 'nice to have' will keep people furloughed as long as possible.

Most of the aviation industry. Those who haven’t been made redundant yet, anyway.

I do payroll in a few companies. Loads on furlough, part furlough still. Printing companies who aren't yet printing for carnival the cruise people because they haven't got off the ground, theatres and entertainment businesses, cabin crew, shall I go on?

How can people be so short sighted! Things don’t just reopen and get back to normal because Boris announces it’s freedom day. Loads of industry’s are still hugely effected and will be for months if not years.

That's only 3% of the UK population. I wouldn't say that was loads. There are plenty of places hit so hard with this, those people are incredibly lucky to still be on furlough and not unemployed. Considering furlough will end in September as well

Where my DS works, they still have staff on flexi furlough, they are doing ok, but their profit margins are well below what they have been, which is to be expected. He was on one day a week furlough, didn’t make much of a difference in pay, but still had to do a 5 day week in 4, so he asked to be taken off furlough. My DH is self employed and never been on furlough but got the self employed grant last year.

@HalloHello

That's only 3% of the UK population. I wouldn't say that was loads. There are plenty of places hit so hard with this, those people are incredibly lucky to still be on furlough and not unemployed. Considering furlough will end in September as well

As a percentage of the working age employed populated it's probably quite a bit higher and easily explained by all the people in the airline and entertainment industry, which are still way below capacity.

In Scotland nightclubs are still closed... so those staff will be.