IRRV Alert - week ending 6th March 2021
News
Reports
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: statistics (1 March 2021)
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: statistics
Research Briefing
Published Monday, 01 March, 2021
This paper provides statistics and analysis of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Documents to download
-
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: statistics (1,012 KB, PDF)
Download full reportDownload ‘Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: statistics’ report (1,012 KB, PDF)
-
Supporting documents
- Furloughed jobs by constituency Furloughed jobs by constituency (139 KB, Excel Spreadsheet)(139 KB, Excel Spreadsheet)
This paper provides statistics and analysis of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme applied from 1 March 2020 and is currently due to end at the end of April 2021. The scheme provides grants to employers so they can retain and continue to pay staff during coronavirus related lockdowns, by furloughing employees at 80% of their wages.
By midnight on 15 February, 11.2 million jobs had been furloughed through the Government’s job retention scheme, costing £53.8 billion.
Furlough levels largely rise and falls with changes in lockdown restrictions and changes to the CJRS scheme. The number of jobs furloughed peaked in June, fell throughout the summer and then increased in November and again in January after national lockdowns were introduced.
Sectors
Some sectors have been much more affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and this is reflected in furlough levels. At 31 January 2020, 68% (1.15 million) of eligible jobs in the Accommodation and food services were still on furlough, making it the sector with the highest furlough rate. 64% (315,000) of jobs in the Arts, entertainment and recreation sector, and 63% (222,600) of eligible jobs in the Other service activities sector were also furloughed as at 31 January.
Age and gender
Those aged 24 and under had the highest proportion of furloughed jobs, and women in these age groups were more likely to be furloughed than men.
Full and partial furlough
From 1 July, the furlough scheme was made more flexible so that furloughed employees could be brought back part-time. Over the summer, the number of jobs partially furloughed rose as jobs fully furloughed fell, as lockdown restrictions eased, and employees were more able to go to work some of the time. The announcement of the November lockdown caused a much sharper increase in full furlough, and this happened again when January lockdown began.
Impact on the labour market
It is clear that the CJRS has been instrumental to avoiding a large rise in unemployment. In April 2020, the OBR published a reference scenario where unemployment would peak at 10.0% in Q2 2020. In reality, the highest rate of unemployment in 2020 was 5.1% in Q4.
How many redundancies the CJRS will avoid in the longer term will depend on how the scheme is wound down. Think tanks like the Resolution Foundation, The Institute for Employment Studies and the Institute for Fiscal Studies all suggest that the scheme be wound down gradually while restrictions are still in place, with targeted restrictions in certain sectors or regions.