Almost two million workers were unemployed or furloughed in January and had been for at least six months, according to new research revealing the scale of damage to the UK’s labour force caused by the pandemic.
The Resolution Foundation’s Long Covid in the labour market report found that around 700,000 UK workers had been unemployed and a further 500,000 had been fully furloughed for at least six months by January 2021.
When including those who had moved between full furlough and unemployment, the total number of people who had not worked for at least six months to January increased to 1.9 million.