Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a one month extension to the furlough scheme supporting employee wages during the pandemic.
The scheme will now run through until the end of April 2021, an additional month added to the previous furlough extension, which would have ended in March 2021.
Furlough, otherwise known as the Job Retention Scheme, will continue to pay up to 80 percent of wages for unworked hours, up to a £2,500 monthly cap. The employer will still need to cover employers NIC and auto-enrolled pension out of pocket.
Over one million businesses are currently using the scheme to support their staff wage bills. Around ten million jobs have been supported so far.
Our furlough calculator has been updated to allow for the additional month.
A similar extension has been provided for the government-backed loan schemes, such as bounce back loans, which will now be available until the end of March 2021 - rather than ending in January. Nearly £70 billion has been loaned out so far.
No word at present on whether support for self employed people for the months of February, March and April 2021 will remain at similar 80 percent levels - it was previously announced that there will be support for those months but the amount of support is yet to be confirmed/announced.