Play all audios:
Gillian McAteer, the head of employment law at Citation, issued a stark warning on this: "A year away from work may be the longest stretch many employees have been away from work and
although it has been possible for them to take up alternative work during furlough, many will be suffering the effects of such a long absence, becoming de-skilled and lacking
confidence." This problem could be exacerbated by the fact that many employees may not have a job to come back to once the government's support ends. As Gillian continued:
"One of the reasons why the Chancellor originally intended to scrap the furlough scheme and replace it with the Job Support Scheme which would have been open to those working certain
minimum hours, was to ensure that government support was focussed at protecting ‘viable jobs’ and not mothballing jobs which in reality no longer exist. "The state of the pandemic and
the impact on the economy led to a rethink on this and the decision to continue with furlough to avoid mass redundancies but it is probably the case that for many, the furlough extension has
just postponed rather than avoided redundancy. READ MORE: FURLOUGH & SEISS CLAIMANTS 'LEFT IN THE COLD' AS WORKERS STRUGGLE