Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has paid out almost £34 billion since its launch in April 2020

New HMRC statistics also show that more than £2 billion spent on scheme in last week alone

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has paid out almost £30 billion since its launch on 20 April 2020, according to new statistics from HMRC.

In the latest of its weekly statistics on the CJRS, HMRC says that by midnight on 2 August 2020 -

• 9.6 million jobs had been furloughed, an increase of 100,000 on the previous week;
• 1.2 million employers were furloughing, the same as in the previous three weeks; and
• a total of £33.8 billion had been paid out on the scheme; an increase of £2.1 billion on the previous week.

NB - HMRC advises that the number of employers is calculated as the number of distinct PAYE schemes that have made a claim, and the number of employees is calculated as the sum of the maximum number of employees furloughed by each PAYE scheme that has made a claim.

For more information see HMRC coronavirus (COVID-19) statistics from gov.uk