As ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ kickstarts this month – giving customers 50 per cent off their meals (up to £10) at restaurants and pubs that have signed up to the scheme – the centrepiece of the Treasury’s Covid-19 policy package starts to wind down. From this month, employers will be asked to pay a small part of their employees’ wages: 5 per cent now, 10 per cent next month, and 20 per cent in October, before furlough officially comes to an end. A policy that was initially expected to have take-up from 10 per cent of businesses has become the crutch of more than one million businesses across the UK, as nearly ten million employees have been furloughed for some length of time over the past four months. Given this heavy reliance on the government to pay for workers’ salaries in these economically turbulent times, it is all but certain that as the generosity of the scheme reduces, unemployment will rise.
Many expect the jobs cliff-edge to come at the start of November, when the option to furlough employees is officially gone and employers are back to bearing the full weight of salaries and costs.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in