furlough

“Furlough – Probably the best pandemic policy in the world?”

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The onset of the pandemic last year led economists to conservatively pencil in double-digit unemployment rates for the UK and Northern Ireland. What economists hadn’t initially factored in was the Chancellor’s Mario Draghi-style ‘Whatever it takes’ approach to protect jobs and prevent such an outcome from occurring. Rishi Sunak quickly unveiled the Job Retention Scheme (JRS) or furlough scheme. A policy designed to prevent mass unemployment by paying employers to keep jobs until the worst impacts of COVID-19 had passed. In time, economists progressively lowThe onset of the pandemic last year led economists to conservatively pencil in double-digit unemployment rates for the UK and Northern Ireland. What economists hadn’t initially factored in was the Chancellor’s Mario Draghi-style ‘Whatever it takes’ approach to protect jobs and prevent such an outcome from occurring. Rishi Sunak quickly unveiled the Job Retention Scheme (JRS) or furlough scheme. A policy designed to prevent mass unemployment by paying employers to keep jobs until the worst impacts of COVID-19 had passed. In time, economists progressively lowered their unemployment forecasts and revised down the anticipated surge in joblessness when the furlough scheme eventually ended. After several extensions, the Job Retention Scheme finally ended on the 30 September 2021. 

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Flattered by furlough… a jobs rewind beckons?

Richard RamseyLeave a comment

Lockdowns prompted a pause in the labour market with Rishi Sunak rolling out the safety net that was the Job Retention Scheme (JRS). With the play button then hit as many sectors went back to work. In more recent times, we’ve seen a fast forward in the labour market figures, with the number of payrolls rising for nine consecutive months and hitting a record high for the third month running in August. We may well see this trend continue in September. But with the furlough scheme ending in a couple of weeks, we know it isn’t going to be a straight-line recovery from there. The Jobs Retention Scheme has flattered the jobs figures.  But we’re now moving to a new stage of the recovery, a stage where stimulus is being turned off, inflationary headwinds are intensifying and the increased burden of tax rises is due to be felt from April 2022. We may well therefore see something of a rewind in the jobs data in the next few months as the labour market adapts to the post-furlough world. Don’t be surprised if we see payrolls fall back below pre-pandemic levels before the year is out.  Getting back to pre-pandemic levels of self-employment and hours worked will take quite some time.

So, what is the latest batch of labour market statistics from NISRA telling us?

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What a difference a year makes

Richard RamseyLeave a comment

Twelve months have passed since the labour market reacted to the pandemic induced slump in economic activity. The initial impact was most noticeable on the claimant count (the numbers claiming unemployment related benefit) and the HMRC’s payrolls data. The former posted a record monthly rise in April and peaked at 63,800 in May. That was more than double March’s figure of 30,500. Meanwhile the number of employees on the HMRC’s payrolls data tumbled by almost 12,000 over the same period. Unprecedented employment support measures, such as the Job Retention Scheme (JRS), steadied the ship, but 2020 was still a record year for redundancies.

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