Britain records record number of job losses in three years

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

The number of people in the UK who lost their job in the three months to October ahead of a planned phasing-out of a public sector pay freeze hit a record on Tuesday, official said.

The Office for National Statistics said that the number of layoffs hit 370.000 over the August-October period-a three-month record.

At the end of October, the UK government was intending to end the employment maintenance programme which paid out the bulk of the salaries of people made jobless by the coronavirus pandemic, but kept by businesses on the payroll.