Impact. 25th September
Chancellor announced a Job Support Scheme:
If a person is working less than normal hours the Government will support.
Workers must work at least a third of their usual hours.
Employers will pay staff for those hours.
The government and the employer will add a third each for the hours they can’t work.
It means someone working a third of their hours can receive 77% of their pay.
Maximum from Government will be £697.92 per month.
All small and medium sized businesses can join the scheme.
Larger business can be in if their turnover has fallen in pandemic.
This will be for 6 months from November.
Government will pay a maximum of 22% of a person’s wages.
There is also an extension to business loans to 10 years.
VAT at 15% continues for tourism and restaurants etc continues to 31st March.
But there is some worry that it may not support zero hours contracts, shops and restaurants, if the job is not going to continue in future.
Virus cases have increased to over 6,000 but this is not actually the highest level. In March, the only tests were in hospitals and so there were probably 100 thousand cases in the UK but they were not tested. But we should worry about the increase now – see the chart below.
