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LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) - Britain's finance ministry
tightened the requirement for employers to receive a 1,000-pound
($1,315) bonus for rehiring furloughed staff, to exclude
payments where an employee will soon be made redundant.
Around one in three British private-sector workers were put
on furlough after the country went into lockdown in March, at a
cost of 32 billion pounds so far, and last month finance
minister Rishi Sunak announced an incentive for them to be
brought back to work.
Employers will receive 1,000 pounds for every furloughed
worker they bring back full- or part-time, who is paid at least
520 pounds a month and is still employed at the end of January.
On Friday, Britain's finance ministry said the bonus would
not be paid if a worker had been put on notice that they would
be made redundant after January.
"As the scheme is designed to protect jobs, those who are
serving notice for redundancy will not be eligible for the
bonus," it said.
British employees are generally entitled to one week's
notice of redundancy for every year they have worked for their
employer, up to 12 weeks, and at large companies redundancy
consultations can last several months.
British Airways, travel company TUI
and department store and supermarket operator John
Lewis are among well-known firms to have warned this month of
job losses.
Most economists expect that the unemployment rate will rise
later this year to its highest since at least the early 1990s.
The government's current furlough scheme pays staff 80% of
their wages, up to 2,500 pounds a month, but from August
employers will have to foot more of the bill until the scheme
ends entirely at the end of October.
($1 = 0.7602 pounds)
(Reporting by David Milliken
Editing by Gareth Jones)
