The Treasury is right to begin to wind down the furlough scheme – and not a moment too soon. The UK economy is springing back to life and the labour market is not far behind. It will take a while for this to be confirmed in the official data. We still only have the headline … Continue reading The UK’s flexible labour market needs to be allowed to do its job
Tag: furlough
Ignore the gloomsters, the economy is roaring back
The horror! Yesterday we discovered that UK economic output — as measured by GDP — fell by 1.6 per cent in the first quarter of the year, 0.1 per cent worse than the 1.5 per cent originally reported. This is practically a rounding error. To put it in context, as recently as March the Office for Budget Responsibility, … Continue reading Ignore the gloomsters, the economy is roaring back
Why it’s right to wind down furlough
The Treasury will start to wind down the furlough scheme this week – and not a moment too soon. To begin with, the support is relatively generous – and costly – and still due to last another three months. Under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), employees on furlough receive 80% of their normal wages … Continue reading Why it’s right to wind down furlough
Two cheers and one boo for the Budget
On balance, I think Rishi Sunak got more things right than wrong in Wednesday’s Budget. Let’s start with a couple of positives. First, he extended the most important support measures, including the uplift to Universal Credit and the furlough scheme, until the end of September. This is probably longer than strictly necessary because the remaining … Continue reading Two cheers and one boo for the Budget
Plain-speaking Economics 