Figures published by HM Treasury which cover the period to 30 June 2021 show the fewest number of people on furlough since the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme launched in March 2020.
- almost three million people have moved off furlough since March;
- more than half a million people left the scheme in the month of June alone;
- fewer than two million people now remain on furlough.
Latest ONS Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) shows numbers may have fallen even further – with estimates that between 1.1 and 1.6 million people are still on furlough.
In the last three months, younger people have moved off the scheme twice as fast as all other age brackets, with almost 600,000 under 25s moving off the scheme.
Jobs in sectors including hospitality and retail are now also moving off the scheme the fastest, – with more than a million coming off the scheme in the last three months.
At it’s peak, there were nearly nine million people furloughed at the height of the pandemic in May 2020.
