Workers rescue package to guarantee pay until October, says UK government

UK workers will now be paid up to October as part of the government's rescue package if they are in an industry in which they cannot carry out their job due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The furlough job retention scheme has been extended for a further four months, with the government saying that 7.5 million temporarily laid-off employees, one in every four British workers, are now on it.

"It will have been eight months, March to October, where we have provided that security and this is the right thing to do," said Business Secretary Alok Sharma in a televised press briefing.

Earlier on Tuesday, Rishi Sunak, the UK's finance minister, warned that from August employers would need to help meet the cost. "We have stretched and strained to be as generous as possible to businesses and workers," he told parliament.

"This scheme is expensive. It is the right thing to do — the cost of not acting would have been far higher — but it is not something that can continue indefinitely into the future."

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