The Chancellor has just announced that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, or 'furlough', recently extended until 2 December, will now be extended to the end of March 2021 for all parts of the UK.
The scheme will continue to provide for employees to be paid 80% of their salary for hours not worked (up to a maximum of £2,500 per month) and employers will only be required to cover employers' pension contributions and National Insurance Contributions for hours not worked (and also pay for any hours actually worked). The CJRS extension will be reviewed in January "to examine whether the economic circumstances are improving enough for employers to be asked to increase contributions". The Job Support Scheme is therefore postponed.
The Jobs Retention Bonus, the purpose of which was to encourage retention until the end of January, will not now be paid in February and the government will redeploy a retention incentive "at the appropriate time".
A Factsheet is available here; more detail is included in guidance here. In addition to details already published (see our earlier blog post), these confirm that employees included on an RTI submission on or before 23 September, who subsequently stopped working for their employer, can also qualify for the scheme if the employer re-employs them. Full guidance is to be published on Tuesday 10 November.
Employers should note that the closing date for claims up to and including 31 October remains 30 November 2020.
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