Trade unions and business groups in the United Kingdom have told The Guardian newspaper that the country is at risk of a wave of mass unemployment should Chancellor Rishi Sunak not extend the coronavirus-related furlough scheme at the earliest possible opportunity
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd February, 2021) Trade unions and business groups in the United Kingdom have told The Guardian newspaper that the country is at risk of a wave of mass unemployment should Chancellor Rishi Sunak not extend the coronavirus-related furlough scheme at the earliest possible opportunity.
Sunak brought in the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which sees the government pay up to 80 percent of employees' wages for hours not worked, back in March during the first wave of the pandemic. The initiative was recently extended until April of this year, and may be prolonged further when the chancellor presents his budget on March 3.
Frances O'Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, told the newspaper that Sunak should extend the scheme until the end of the year or face the prospect of a spike in unemployment.
"It would be a dereliction of duty of any government [not to extend furlough]. Nobody should think it is responsible or acceptable for any government to consign people to the dole queues," O'Grady said.
The director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, Adam Marshall, said that the furlough initiative should be extended until at least July, given that the mass vaccination program is unlikely to resolve all the issues businesses currently face.
"What one can't do is say that once the vaccine rollout has happened, everything will be OK. That is not the case. You've got businesses in deep trouble, and still the possibility of flare ups in the virus. It's not a case of just vaccinate and forget about it," Marshall told the newspaper.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has already cost the Treasury an estimated 50 billion Pounds ($68 billion), according to the newspaper.
The unemployment rate in the United Kingdom rose to five percent for the first time since August 2016 this past November, according to data provided by the Office for National Statistics.
The spike in unemployment coincided with England's second national lockdown and the implementation of tougher social distancing restrictions across Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
