The CIPD has made three crucial recommendations in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in order to help protect jobs during the Covid crises.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has made the following suggestions:
- To extend the furlough scheme to the end of June, instead of the current 31st March date.
- For the level of wage subsidy to remain at 80% for February and March. This should then reduce to 70% in April and remain at 60% during May and June.
- For the Job Retention Scheme to not just protect jobs, but create support to enable firms to train staff who are fully furloughed or working reduced hours, as well as provide funded outplacement skills development to any worker made redundant.
Peter Cheese, CIPD Chief Executive, commented, “It is crucial that government sets out a long-term plan to protect jobs beyond March, to help businesses plan with confidence and minimise the need to make more redundancies against an uncertain backdrop through spring and early summer.
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Email Jaime“Extending the Job Retention Scheme to the end of June will give businesses the certainty they need to protect jobs while the vaccine is being rolled out. In addition, linking the scheme to support for training will help upskill or retrain staff in sectors that have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, and provide skills development help for workers who are made redundant over the period.
“The government will of course be concerned about the cost of extending furlough beyond March, but its calculations must take full account of the costs of not doing so. These include a significant increase in the number of people claiming Universal Credit, and reduced confidence and spending power in the economy at a time when both have never been needed more.
“Jobs that are lost over this period are also likely to feed into long-term unemployment as recruitment and onboarding costs will mean cash-strapped employers will hesitate to hire permanent staff again until they are certain about the strength of the economy.
“If we are to achieve economic and jobs recovery in the second half of next year, the government must raise its ambition on job protection and investment in skills.”
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