The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak has unveiled his emergency COVID rescue plan in a statement to the House of Commons to protect jobs and provide further support for struggling businesses.

The UK government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), which pays towards the wages of staff on furlough during the coronavirus pandemic will come to an end as planned on 31st October 2020.

Speaking of a new jobs support scheme being introduced, he said: “Our task is to move to the next stage of our economic plan, by nurturing the recovery by protecting jobs through the difficult winter months. The primary goal of our economic policy remains unchanged – to support people’s jobs. But the way we achieved that must evolve”.

The new jobs support scheme which will run for 6 months from November will give employers the option to keep people in work on shorter hours rather than making them redundant even if they weren’t previously furloughed. Employees will be required to work at least 33% of their hours with the Government and employers covering one-third of the remaining hours each. Therefore an employee working 33% of their normal hours will receive 77% of their pay.

The scheme can be accessed by all SMEs and by larger businesses whose turnover has fallen during the Covid-19 crisis.