COVID-19 and Jobs in UK – Government to pay 80% of wages for those not working

The government is to pay the wages of millions of workers across Britain to keep them in jobs as the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak escalates.

In an unprecedented step for the British government, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said the state would pay grants covering up to 80% of the salary of workers if companies kept them on their payroll, rather than lay them off as the economy crashes. The extraordinary payments will be worth up to a maximum of £2,500 per month, just above the median income.

Coming just days after the government announced a business bailout package worth £350bn to help firms cope with the lockdown of large parts of the British economy as the disease spreads, the chancellor described his revamped plan as one of the most comprehensive in the world and “unprecedented in British history”. City economists said the new plan would cost an additional £78bn…

The government has come under mounting pressure in recent days to do more to support ordinary people after taking unprecedented steps to help firms as the crisis worsens. Other countries have taken steps to support workers as the global pandemic intensives, including in the US, where the White House is looking at making direct cash payments to American citizens, and Denmark, where the state will pay 75% of workers’ wages.

French workers who are temporarily laid off by their employers due to the coronavirus crisis are entitled to claim “partial unemployment benefit” equal to 84% of their wages, and employers are obliged to keep their jobs open for them.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story @ UK government to pay 80% of wages for those not working in coronavirus crisis | World news | The Guardian