Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Update

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme impact is being assessed and the latest government report suggests that the need for support continued to rise at the start of this year.

January Statistics For Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

Based on figures for January, it is estimated that the number of employments furloughed reported for February could increase by around 4%. The February figures should therefore be considered as provisional and will be revised in a future release.

Key Points

The key points show the figures for February 2021 at this stage is provisional as additional claims for the period are received. Broadly, the age, gender and regional patterns of furloughed employments in February, and the business size breakdown of employers, are similar to those seen in January.

Employments Furloughed

• the number of employments furloughed grew sharply in November and stood at 4.0 million at 31 December. The employments furloughed increased further in January to 4.9 million employments furloughed on 31 January
• figures currently available for February are slightly lower at 4.7 million furloughed at 28 February, but final levels are expected to be broadly similar to January once all claims and amendments for February have been received
• the levels of furloughing seen in these figures reflects the changes to restrictions on individuals, households and businesses across the UK since the autumn
• provisional figures show that all sectors have seen a slight reduction in levels of furlough between 31 January and 28 February. It is expected that we will see broad consistency in the levels of furlough for all sectors across the two months. The other service activities sector is an exception to this, which saw a slight increase in furloughing between 31 January and provisional figures for 28 February
• at 31 January, 41% of employers had staff furloughed. Provisional estimates show that this remained the same at 28 February. 16% of employments eligible for furlough were furloughed at 31 January. Provisional estimates show this remained broadly consistent at 15% at 28 February, but final figures are expected to show a take-up rate of 16% when all claims and amendments for February have been received
• since the start of the scheme a cumulative total of 11.4 million jobs have been supported by the CJRS at various times. This is across all claims submitted to 15 March 2021
• perhaps unsurprisingly the accommodation and food services sector had the highest take-up rate at 31 January at 68% of eligible employers furloughing and provisional estimates show this increased to 69% of employers at 28 February. 1.23 million employments were furloughed in this sector on 31 January. Provisional estimates show the number of employments furloughed decreased to 1.15 million on 28 February
• furloughing of staff in the wholesale and retail sector peaked on 24 April at 1.85 million employments furloughed. This dropped to 356,400 employments furloughed at 31 October. The number of employments furloughed increased throughout November, December and January to 985,100 at 31 January. Provisional figures show that at 28 February, furloughing in this sector had decreased to 918,500 employments furloughed
• the beverage serving activities sector had the highest proportion of eligible employments furloughed at 31 January, with a take-up rate of 86%. This was followed by the hotels and similar accommodation sector which had 79% of its eligible employments furloughed. Provisional figures for 28 February show these sectors had employment take-up rates of 78% and 69% respectively, the largest take-up rates of all sectors
• the restaurants and mobile food service activities had the highest number of employments furloughed at 31 January with 466,400 employments furloughed. Figures available show this sector had 444,100 employments furloughed at 28 February
• in the passenger air transport sector, there were 200 employers (61% of employers eligible) furloughing 35,100 employments (52% of eligible employments) at 31 January. At 28 February, provisional figures show this remained similar with 35,300 employments furloughed
• overall, medium and large sized employers had a lower proportion of their employees furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme than small and micro-sized employers in January and February
• provisional figures for 28 February show that employers with 250 or more employees had 9% of eligible employees furloughed compared with 15% across all employers. Employers with 2 to 4 employees had the highest proportion of eligible employees furloughed at 35%
• across the UK, where it was possible to link the data, 2.40 million females were furloughed at 31 January compared with 2.24 million males. Provisional estimates show a broadly similar pattern with 2.34 million females furloughed at 28 February and 2.14 million males
• provisional figures for the end of February showed that London had the highest furlough take-up rate at 17% of jobs where the employee was resident in London furloughed against a UK average of 15%. London also had the highest take-up in January
• the under 18 age band had the highest take up rate for both females and males at 31 January, 40% and 30% respectively. Provisional estimates for 28 February show that the under 18 age band continued to have the highest take-up rates at 39% for females and 28% for males
• employees aged 18 to 24 and 65 and over were more likely than average to be furloughed while levels of furloughing were lowest among employees aged 50 to 54
• 1.37 million employments were on partial furlough at 31 January, 28% of the total employments furloughed. Provisional estimates show this figure decreased to 1.27 million employments furloughed at 28 February, 27% of the total employments furloughed

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