Almost 11.5 million jobs have been furloughed since CJRS was introduced in March 2020

Total value of claims increases by almost £4 billion in the last month to stand at more than £57 billion

Almost 11.5 million jobs have been furloughed since the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) was introduced on 20 March 2020, according to new figures from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

In the tenth release of Official Statistics on the CJRS, HMRC provides analysis of claims for periods to 28 February 2021 using data that includes claims submitted by 15 March 2021.

NB - as claims can be submitted for February 2021 later than the filing date of 15 March 2021 (with the agreement of HMRC) or amended after submission, the data for February is not fully complete. However, HMRC advises that these factors are likely to have only a small effect on finalised figures for the month.

Key findings for February 2021 include that -

• provisional figures are slightly lower than January 2021, at 4.7 million employments furloughed at 28 February 2021 (compared to 4.9 million on 31 January 2021);
• the proportion of employers that furloughed staff remained the same in January and February 2021 at 41 per cent, and the proportion of employments furloughed was also similar at 16 per cent in January and 15 per cent in February; and
• 1.27 million employments were on partial furlough at 28 February 2021 (27 per cent of the total employments furloughed), compared to 1.37 million employments on partial furlough at 31 January 2021 (28 per cent of all employments furloughed at that time).

In addition, the statistics provide cumulative data for employments furloughed and the value of claims since the CJRS commenced on 20 March 2020, which show that -

• 11.4 million jobs have been supported by the scheme at various times across all claims submitted to 15 March 2021;
• the total number of jobs furloughed increased by 200,000, from 11.2 million on 15 February 2021; and
• the cumulative amount claimed increased from £53.8 billion at 15 February 2021 to £57.7 billion at 15 March 2021.

For more information, see Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme statistics: March 2021 from gov.uk