Analysis highlights those likely to miss out on furlough scheme

Around 100 thousand workers may have fallen through the cracks of the new Job Retention Scheme because they started for their new employer in March, but weren’t on a PAYE payroll submission before the cut-off date of 19th March, according to new analysis.

The Institute for Employment Studies says its analysis of the Labour Force Survey, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the Business Impacts of Coronavirus Survey show that approximately 500 thousand people start a new job every month (as employees) and that three quarters are paid monthly – or 370 thousand people.  Assuming that 27% of these would have been furloughed, in line with the estimate for the whole workforce, it says that this means that 100 thousand people may have missed out.

It adds that a further half a million people may have been due to change jobs in April and are now caught in limbo – reliant either on their old employer keeping them on as furloughed staff or their new employer paying them without reimbursement from the scheme.

It is calling on the Government to extend the cut-off for the furlough scheme to 31st March and, for those laid off before payroll or told that a new job no longer existed, to look again at the rules of Universal Credit, in particular it suggests suspending the benefit cap, improving the support available for housing costs and lifting the limit on savings.

The analysis comes as IPSE, the freelance campaign body, said its analysis showed mums, over 60s and people aged 50-59 were the fastest-growing groups of freelancers in the last year and are therefore among the most likely to miss out on the Government’s income support scheme for the self employed, given that, to qualify, you need to have filed accounts in for 2018-2019. It is asking the Government to extend the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme to people who became self-employed in 2019/20.

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