10m now unemployed or on furlough

Get ready.

 

Elderly still allowed to garden centres.

 

I’m furloughed till August now, 2020 will live long in memory

 

I can’t see myself back at work this year currently furloughed till September

 

Fruit and vegetables waiting to be picked, seasonal workers can’t get here to pick them and 10m domestic workers being paid to do nothing.





Just that.

 

Is it after August that the government said they want employers to contribute more to furlough? I think that is when we will see pole on 60% pay (or whatever share the government still covers) and redundancies increase. I wonder what percentage of those currently on furlough will not be in the same job (or no job) by the end of the year.

 

If I had to guess I’d go about 50%. Have we ever had 6m unemployed before?

 

What about the long term dole dossers who’ve never done a days graft for their benefits

 

The million dollar question is ‘what does the economy look like as we come out of this?’

If the economy bounces back, and people start spending straight away, then this time next year our only worry will be the debt.

if there’s low confidence and people don’t start spending, we’ll be carrying this for several years.

it’s way too early to tell.

 

If the queues at the KFC at end of Sprotbrough road is anything to go by, people can't wait to spend spend spend

 

You’ve missed the point of ‘benefits’.

grafting for money is what employed people do.

If you make the unemployed work, then you’re making them employed. It’s not complicated.

 

No

 

How can people start spending when a fair chunk of these will have lost their job and another chunk will be worried about/close to losing theirs. Can’t see in any world how there would be a bounce back that doesn’t take years

 

Because there are plenty of people who have kept working too.

of all the workers I’m closely related to (siblings, in laws, kids);
7 worked all the way through (6 key workers)
3 spent some time furloughed (1 For only 3 weeks)
1 Mat leave
1 unemployed

I appreciate we all have our own stories, but it’s not true that the number furloughed / unemployed are a majority.

4 houses in a row on my street:
1 retired couple
2 couples worked all the way through
1 person furloughed for only 3 weeks, partner is hairdresser furloughed throughout.

when this is over, we’ll need haircuts, we’ll go back to pubs, theatre, football etc. The jobs that don’t exist now are a temporary blip.

 

I love that Prince Charles is encouraging furloughed workers to pick fruit.

Why doesn't Prince Charles pick some fruit? I ain't doing it.

 

The people who have kept working don’t have much more to spend than they did before maybe a couple of months beer tokens they’ve saved. A lot of people will have significantly less to spend. Yes people will always need haircuts but they may now not have the money to justify their BFC Season ticket, their foreign holiday, that new car on finance.

I am a keyworker but I will still be spending less than I would normally until I have an idea what is happening with my Mrs’ job

 

Mass redundancies are already being planned due to collective consultation rules.

It’s going to have to be very little change in the furlough scheme to dissuade employers (especially in hospitality) to pull the trigger.

However the government will bear a lot of these costs as companies will be dumped and employees left to claim redundancy from the national insurance fund.

the economy is very much ****** in my opinion and will take years to recover. There will be no ‘V’ shaped recovery. Suspect we will be looking at 5-10 years recovery and the economy that comes out of this will look very different, with technology having replaced a lot of jobs, and many more people working from home.

 

One question I've got is how many of those jobs NEEDED to be furloughed?

The instruction has always been clear. Unless you work in the sacrificed retail or hospitality industry you should continue to work and yet employers up and down the country have taken the easy way out. Business is a bit quiet but nothing that other businesses don't have to endure temporarily from time to time. They could have taken the hit short term and operated with reduced profits for a short period like other companies do at different times of the year but because the government offered to essentially cover their employees entire wages they instead furloughed people.

80% was too high. It meant that people didn't really mind the reduced wages in exchange for a two month holiday and it gave the business owners an easy way to cut costs and force the remaining staff to do twice the work. They didn't need to do it but chose to.

Furlough should have been 60% at most. It should also have been available as a reduced hours option from the very beginning (so you don't have employee 1 sat at home for 4 day's pay and employee 2 working 5 days essentially for 1 extra days pay). But most importantly it should have been 100% for all those jobs the government FORCED to be furloughed.

The two industries forced to close should have been given significantly more help than they have been and yet all businesses are allowed to furlough staff and make needless claims of many thousands of pounds just because they can.

A firm of 3 builders who was allowed to work outside people's homes had a choice to make. Graft and work hard and earn the money. Or take a nice government grant and furlough everyone for 80%. Easy choice.

 

£15 a day it costs me to go to work - stay home and work, that’s considerable, I’ve already missed 2 holidays, God knows how many ‘beer tokens’ but at least a couple of meals out with mates. Family coming round and eating us out of house and home etc etc.

Off the top of my head - at least a grand a month for me and the mrs