As expected, Rishi Sunak has just announced that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will be extended for four months, until the end of October 2020.
Until the end of July, there are no changes.
From August to October 2020, the scheme continues on the basis furloughed employees can be brought back part-time. Full details of how this will work will be published by the end of May so we will have to wait and see what the rules relating to this are.
Additionally from August, although employees will still be entitled to receive 80% of their pay (subject to the £2,500 cap) the government will reduce it’s contribution and expect employers to ‘top up’ the payment. This ties in with the scheme to allow people to return to work part time and is a good thing for most but inevitably will cause difficulties if there is not a role to go back to and will likely mark the beginning of the redundancies which have been held at bay so far by this scheme.
All in all this is a positive announcement from the Chancellor but should now serve to crystallise restructuring plans particularly where it is not envisaged that employees will have a job to return to. We have some blogs and webinars on our website summarising some of the steps to take which can be found here.
If you have any queries relating to the scheme please do contact Gary Smith on 01279 712576 or via email gsmith@nockolds.co.uk.