LONDON (Reuters) – British businesses have registered more than 2 million staff as furloughed due to the coronavirus since a government wage support scheme opened on Monday, finance minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday.
Businesses needed to apply for the programme by the end of the day to receive government grants in time to pay furloughed staff at the end of the month, he added.
Government forecasters have said Britain’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – which pays 80% of furloughed staff’s wages – could end up covering 30% of the workforce due to stoppages caused by measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.
(Reporting by David Milliken, Editing by Paul Sandle)
