Half of furloughed spent 2020 out of work
Those in less secure forms of work thirteen per cent more likely to suffer a second shock than those on permanent contracts.
Almost half of the people made workless under the 2020 furlough scheme remained out of work for the rest of the year, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
The Quaker-founded charity followed the 10.5 million workers that were furloughed, or lost work between April and June 2020, to measure how they subsequently navigated the labour market. The research found that forty-eight per cent of people made workless remained out of work for the rest of the year. After the first lockdown six out of ten managed to return to employment.
The researchers Alina Sandor and Andrew Wenham called the findings ‘concerning’. Of those affected by the first lockdown, eighteen per cent of those with less secure contracts (agency, fixed-term, temporary or casual) and twenty-five per cent of those on zero-hours contracts, went on to suffer ‘further negative employment shocks’. Even when comparing workers with the same characteristics, working in the same sector, the charity found that those in less secure forms of work were still thirteen per cent more likely to suffer a second shock than those on permanent contracts.
‘This means that the type of contract was a significant contributing factor to workers facing a worsening employment status later in the year, and the flexible nature of some jobs did not improve their likelihood of recovering quickly,’ the researchers pointed out. Age and pay were also factors, with the oldest and the youngest workers having higher probabilities (twenty per cent and six per cent) of experiencing a second negative employment shock. Low-paid workers were around six per cent more likely.
JRF is calling on the government to urgently bring forward the Employment Bill and use it to introduce new rights to more secure work.
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