To work on the rising unemployment in the country, the UK Government decided to launch the furlough scheme where they were paying 80% of the salaries of people working, with their respective companies paying the rest of the 20%. It was a blessing, with a large group of companies located in the UK benefitting from it. However, after the first couple of months, they were still cutting jobs since they could not even work with the smaller 20% of the salary. At the start of the pandemic, the Government implied that they would be running the scheme for some time and would eventually call it off since companies would be in a better position financially to be independent. However, eight months into the pandemic, there wasn’t a significant change.
The Government has announced that they will be stoping the scheme by the end of October which is likely to reduce employment.
They currently estimate that the number of unemployed in the UK will be well passed the three million mark by the end of the year. The number of people that they are going to lay off in October itself will be on the higher side, but the Government cannot keep funding the scheme indefinitely. After a lot of push back for a substitute scheme, the Government created one where they mentioned that they would be supporting companies that had some part to play concerning the entire COVID situation in the country. Medical facilities and private companies that were directly or indirectly involved in assisting with the pandemic were going to receive benefits from the Government. Other companies would have to find a way to start picking themselves up, with the Chancellor even saying that a country cannot keep funding all the companies with it.
According to calculations and predictions, the massive job loss post the cancellation of the furlough scheme would raise the unemployment rate within the country from 4.1% to an all-time high of 8%. However, recent months have seen the economy improving, slowly but steadily, which looks promising for most companies. People were careful and were taking precautions, including distancing and masks, to make sure that they were not going to catch the virus and pass it on to others.
Just when the situation was going to stabilise, the UK got hit by the second wave of the pandemic, but the Government did not want to begin closing it down the economy. The most significant improvement that the changes to the economy brought was the mandatory background check that employers were pushing for to make sure they were hiring the right fit for their company. The DBS Check was the most popular mechanism for multiple reasons, including easy access since it is available online. People could also access it, upload all their information, which would go through the verification process and the employer who would go through the details mentioned there. The CRB check which later turned into the DBS check was the standard version of the test and provided regular information for the same.
