Treasury: Furlough scheme now covers 8.4m workers
The number of people covered by the government’s job retention furlough scheme has risen to 8.4m, the Treasury revealed today.
The new figure marks an increase of 400,000 people on last week’s update, with over 1m companies using the scheme.
In addition, the value of such claims has now risen to a total of £15bn, a considerable increase from the previously reported figure of £11.1bn.
With an extra 2.3m self-employed workers also being covered for claims of £6.8bn, the state is now covering the majority of the wages of well over 10m people.
Under the terms of the furlough scheme, which was introduced to protect jobs in light of the coronavirus pandemic, the Treasury allows employees to receive 80 per cent of their monthly salary up to £2,500.
Later this week, chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to provide further detail as to how much employers will have to pay to support the scheme in the coming months.
Earlier in May Sunak announced that the furlough programme would be extended by four months until the end of October, but said companies would have to meet some of the cost from the end of August.
According to the Times, plans are being drawn up to ask firms to cover 20 to 30 per cent of wages.
Yesterday, the FT reported that the chancellor would announce a cut-off date after which companies will not be able to put any more employees onto the scheme.
This is designed to prevent firms putting full-time employees onto the scheme and bringing them back part-time, which the scheme is expected to be extended to cover.