Northern Ireland Finance Minister urges Chancellor to extend the furlough scheme beyond October 2020

Economic recovery is still in its infancy and it will be some time before many businesses are anywhere close to being able to achieve viable trading levels, says Conor Murphy

Northern Ireland Finance Minister Conor Murphy has written to Chancellor Rishi Sunak to urge him to extend the furlough scheme beyond October 2020.

In his letter, Mr Murphy says that while the economic priority during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been to protect jobs, and that the effort that has gone into doing so to date has been welcomed, now that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) is coming to an end there is a huge concern that it will lead to large scale redundancies, particularly in the hardest-hit industries.

With many employers who have not been able to open or where their income has been substantially reduced having already made redundancies, Mr Murphy says -

'The economic recovery is still in its infancy and it will be some time before many businesses are anywhere close to being able to achieve viable trading levels. We are nearing the October cliff-edge now and many businesses are still struggling to viably trade and many are not yet able to open or have significantly reduced income, particularly in the hardest-hit industries such as hospitality, retail, leisure and aerospace.
  
I would therefore urge you to extend the scheme past the end of October. In particular, an extension for those sectors unable to operate or who are operating at significantly reduced levels is essential. An extension of the CJRS, particularly for the hardest-hit sectors, would continue to protect jobs and livelihoods and ensure that the positive benefits of our combined interventions to date are not wasted.'

For more information, see Finance Minister calls for extension of furlough scheme.