Over 300,000 redundancies planned
Employers planned to make over 300,000 redundancies in June and July, a freedom of information request by the BBC has revealed.
Figures released by the Insolvency Service showed that in July 1,784 firms in England, Wales and Scotland submitted HR1 forms, which employers must file before making 20 or more people redundant. This was a sevenfold increase over the same month in 2019. In June 1,888 organisations planned for 156,000 redundancies, a sixfold increase.
Since an HR1 form does not have to be registered when making fewer than 20 people redundant, the true figure of job losses for those months is likely to be even higher. The figure does not include Northern Ireland, where HR1 forms are not filed in the same way.
The BBC reported the response of Nye Cominetti, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation think tank.
"The reason this data is so useful is that all our other official data is coming through with a time lag," he commented
"This puts policy makers in a really challenging situation. The main government support schemes are coming to an end, but in terms of the official data, we still don't know how big the jobs crisis is, or where we're heading as we move into the autumn."
He added that the figures, when viewed alongside other surveys and forecasts, suggest "a fairly bleak and consistent picture of the next couple of months".