Government to announce future support plans on March 3

A new study undertaken by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has revealed the extent to which lower-paid workers in the United Kingdom, who lost their jobs in the pandemic, are finding it harder to find new ones.

The research findings, which were shared exclusively with Bloomberg magazine revealed that disproportionally these displaced lower paid workers are having a hard time finding new jobs. This finding highlights the risks of long-term economic fall-out on Britain as a result of the crisis.

In fact, the researchers concluded that workers near the poverty line are more likely to have become unemployed during the crisis, while UK job vacancies are skewed toward higher-paid positions.

As a result, competition for lower-skilled roles are becoming fierce and intense, thus worsening the hardship faced by those out of work as a result of the pandemic.

The data points to the likelihood of longer-term unemployment in this job category. The study, which was carried out based on data from the Institute of Employment Studies and Adzuna showed that competition for jobs has been fiercest in sales and customer service roles.

In addition, competition in jobs defined as elementary occupations such as cleaners, security guards and manual laborers is also fiercely competitive. Those occupations accounted for 26 per cent of those unemployed as of September 2020, but only 15 per cent of job vacancies.

Pressure on British Government to continue furlough programme

The revelation of the findings is set to add more pressure on the British Government to  extend aid for the labor market in the March 3 budget. This, as most pandemic aid programmes are due to end soon.

While the government’s response to the crisis has been successful so far, this latest findings will definitely spur much debate for a continuation of the aid programmes. The flagship furlough program, which keeps employees on company register while the government pays their wages, has kept joblessness contained at five percent.

This is well below predictions made at the start of the pandemic. Rebecca McDonald, senior economist at Joseph Rowntree Foundation is worried that ending the subsidies will lead to a big spike up in unemployment in Britain. She argued that the prospect of longer-term unemployment due to competition for jobs will be extremely challenging.