Rishi Sunak promises £1,000 for EVERY member of staff firms bring back from furlough in £9BILLION ‘jobs bonus’ scheme
Chancellor Rishi Sunak today pledged to £1,000 to businesses for every person they bring back to work after being put on furlough through lockdown.
The Chancellor broke with tradition by announcing a surprise policy at the start his Commons statement as experts warned that a ‘tsunami’ of redundancies will follow when the scheme ends later this year.
The £1,000-per-person pledge will cost £9billion and is part of Mr Sunak’s pledge to keep as many people in work as possible after the pandemic tipped the UK into recession.
Unemployment is at around four per cent but some fear it could reach 10 per cent without help from the Treasury.
Explaining the new bonus scheme, Rishi Sunak told the Commons: “If you’re an employer and you bring back someone who was furloughed – and continuously employ them through to January – we’ll pay you a £1,000 bonus per employee.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, pictured today, pledged to £1,000 to businesses for every person they bring back to work after being put on furlough through lockdown
“Its vital people aren’t just returning for the sake of it – they need to be doing decent work. So for businesses to get the bonus, the employee must be paid at least £520 on average, in each month from November to the end of January – the equivalent of the lower earnings limit in national insurance.”
The Chancellor said if employers bring back all nine million people who have been on furlough then it would be a £9 billion policy.
He added: “Our message to business is clear: if you stand by your workers, we will stand by you.”
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the the second phase of the Government’s plan is about jobs, with the third phase focused on rebuilding.
He added he will produce a Budget and spending review in the autumn.
Mr Sunak said the furlough scheme “cannot and should not go on forever”, telling MPs: “I know that when furlough ends it will be a difficult moment. I’m also sure that if I say the scheme must end in October, critics will say it should end in November.
“If I say it should end in November, critics will say December. But the truth is: calling for endless extensions to the furlough is just as irresponsible as it would have been, back in June, to end the scheme overnight. We have to be honest.”
He went on in the Commons: “Leaving the furlough scheme open forever gives people false hope that it will always be possible to return to the jobs they had before.
“And the longer people are on furlough, the more likely it is their skills could fade, and they will find it harder to get new opportunities. It is in no-one’s long term interests for the scheme to continue forever – least of all those trapped in a job that can only exist because of Government subsidy.”
He said the “jobs retention bonus” will reward and incentivise employers who bring furloughed staff back.