Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Chancellor extends furlough scheme until April 2021 at last minute
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak

THE coronavirus furlough scheme will be extended to the end of April, the Chancellor announced today, less than 24 hours before bosses were expected to decide on possible redundancies.

The scheme had been due to expire in March, but Rishi Sunak said that the government will continue for an additional month to pay 80 per cent of the salaries of employees for hours that they are unable to work.

Employers will only be required to pay wages, national insurance contributions (NICS) and pensions for hours worked; and NICS and pensions for hours not worked.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
General view of the Job Centre Plus on Benalder St in Glasgow
Economy / 21 March 2026
21 March 2026

PHILIP ENGLISH says military spending will not create the jobs young people need — instead, build an economy based around needs, not profit

Members of the House of Lords seated ahead of the State Open
Britain / 28 October 2025
28 October 2025
Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds
Features / 8 August 2025
8 August 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests

NHS workers on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital, London, ahead of a march from the hospital to Trafalgar Square, May 1, 2023
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

The Bill addresses some exploitation but leaves trade unions heavily regulated, most workers without collective bargaining coverage, and fails to tackle the balance of power that enables constant mutation of bad practice, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC