Rishi Sunak has hailed the “extraordinary success” of the furlough scheme as official figures suggest a “small” number of jobs were lost at its demise.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported a rise of 160,000 in payrolled employment between September and October.
Treasury data had shown there were 1.14 million jobs on furlough when the scheme ended on 30 September.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, as it was officially called, had supported the wages of more than 11.7 million people since 1 March 2020 at a cost of more than £70bn as the COVID-19 pandemic forced large parts of the economy into hibernation.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey told MPs on Monday that it Bank had held off raising interest rates to help combat rising inflation earlier this month because policymakers had wanted to see how the jobs market had responded to the end of the furlough scheme.
The ONS said it could take a few months to fully emerge because of notice periods but the early evidence suggested the numbers made redundant was “small”.
The number of payrolled employees – those on PAYE (Pay As You Earn) – was up by 0.8% since February 2020.
That was a rise of 235,000 on pre-pandemic levels.
There was no improvement, however, in the labour shortage crisis that has damaged the supply chain as vacancies hit a new record high of 1.17 million.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.3% in the three months to September from 4.5% – a deeper fall than economists had expected.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who had been urged by critics including unions and some business groups to extend furlough, said of the ONS data: “Today’s numbers are testament to the extraordinary success of the furlough scheme and welcome evidence that our Plan for Jobs has worked.
“We know how vital keeping people in good jobs is, both for them and for our economy – which is why it’s fantastic to see the unemployment rate falling for 9 months in a row and record numbers of people moving into…
Source : skynews
