Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme statistics: December 2020
Updated 29 July 2021
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Overview
This is the seventh release of Official Statistics on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). This release provides analysis of claims for periods up to 31 October 2020. The data used includes claims submitted to HMRC by 30 November 2020.
In this release the daily time series of employments supported by the CJRS are extended to the end of October. These statistics also include analysis of the use of CJRS as at 31 October and revised figures for the period from July to September incorporating additional claims submitted up to the 30 November deadline.
We will continue to publish statistics on the Job Retention Scheme and the CJRS extension in future months. These statistics are Experimental Statistics and are subject to revisions. Further information is provided later in this publication.
This release has been revised to include updated figures for the eligible population for the initial CJRS scheme. The tables contain take-up rates using the update eligible populations based on a refined methodology. The figures in this release contain a downward revision to the number of employments eligible for CJRS. This is due to a refinement in the methodology and results in a small increase in our estimates of the employer and employment take-up rates.
The government announced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) on 20 March 2020. CJRS supports employers in paying their employees. Employers have been able to claim CJRS support for employees on furlough from 1 March 2020. Up to 30 June 2020, CJRS provided employers with financial support of up to 80% of their employees’ salaries.
This support is capped at £2,500 per month per employee. Employers were also able to claim Employer National Insurance and minimum automatic enrolment pension contributions.
For the period 1 July 2020 to 31 October, except in certain exceptional circumstances, staff who had not already been on furlough under the scheme could not be included in claims for support. Changes to the scheme from the start of August, September and October – as described later in this bulletin – gradually reduced the total level of support available for each employee on furlough up to the end of October.
The government has announced an extension to the CJRS to support individuals and businesses who are impacted by disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19). The CJRS will remain open until 31 March 2021. For claim periods from November 2020 to January 2021, employees will receive 80% of their usual salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month. The £2,500 cap is proportional to the hours not worked.
The government will review the policy in January to decide whether economic circumstances are improving enough to ask employers to contribute more.
See guidance on applying for support from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and further details.
Contact details
For queries or feedback on this publication, please contact:
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Next release
The next release will be published on 28 January 2021.
Main points
The key points from this release covering the period to 31 October 2020 are below. Figures for July 2020 to September 2020 have been revised to take into account additional claims received after the cut-off for the previous November release of these statistics.
- following on from the last release which covered the period to 30 September, figures show that furlough of staff across all sectors continued to decrease up to 31 October
- since the peak of 8.9 million employments on furlough on 8 May, followed by reductions in June, figures show that the number of employments on furlough continued to fall throughout July, August and September to 5.4 million at 31 July and 3.8 million at 31 August and 2.8 million at 30 September. Latest figures show that the number of employments has continued to fall throughout October to 2.4 million at 31 October. This is a reduction of 73% from the peak
- furlough of staff in the wholesale and retail sector peaked on 24 April at 1.9 million employments. At 31 October, there were 356,400 employments on furlough in this sector – a decrease of more than 80% since the peak for the sector
- as at 31 October, the sector with the highest proportion of its workforce eligible for furlough that were on furlough was the accommodation and food services sector at 29% followed by arts, entertainment and recreation at 25%. In all, 46% of employers in both the accommodation and food services sector and the arts, entertainment and recreation sector were using the furlough scheme at the end of October
- across all employer sizes, the number of employments on furlough continued to decrease between 30 September and 31 October
- overall, where it was possible to link the data, across the UK, 1.19 million women were on furlough at 31 October compared with 1.14 million men. This is a decrease of 229,700 women and 210,400 men when compared to 30 September
- there was a broad consistency in furlough rates across the nations and regions of the UK at the end of October. London and Wales had the highest take-up rates of 10% against the UK average of 8%
- in most countries and regions more women than men were on furlough at 31 October, the exceptions to this being London where 210,300 women were on furlough and 220,900 men, and West Midlands where 93,500 women were on furlough and 96,800 men
- 196,400 employers had at least one employment on flexible furlough at the end of October. In total 977,200 employments were on flexible furlough at the end of October, 41% of all employments on furlough
- at 50%, the other service activities sector had the highest proportion of employments on flexible furlough. This was followed by the accommodation and food services sector at 48%
- at 48%, South West had the highest proportion of employments on furlough flexibly
About the data in this release
The data used in this release comprises the CJRS claims made up to 30 November 2020. Where possible, this data has been matched with other HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) data to enable additional analysis to be presented. As previously, this bulletin includes figures for the use of the CJRS as follows:
-
the number of employments on furlough by day, also broken down by sector and employer size
-
the number of employments on furlough by day, for July onwards broken down by:
- country and region
- gender
- age
- type of furlough (full furlough or flexible furlough)
Updated and revised tables:
figures for the use of CJRS as at 31 October by the following categories (together with revised figures for the use of CJRS as at 31 July, 31 August and 30 September):
- employer size
- sector
- country and region, including a gender breakdown
- local authority, including a gender breakdown
- parliamentary constituency, including a gender breakdown
- age, including a gender breakdown
- region and sector
These statistics have been produced using data from both the CJRS and HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. They have been developed taking into account user feedback and requests. We would welcome any further feedback from users. This should be sent to CJRS.Statistics.Enquiries@hmrc.gov.uk. Responses will then be taken into consideration when developing future releases.
For these statistics, an ‘employer’ is defined as a PAYE scheme, and ‘employments’ are defined according to the CJRS criteria. Further details are within the background section.
As with previous releases, where we have been unable to match the CJRS claims with other HMRC data, we have denoted this as ‘unknown’ in the tables within this release.
The release reports a CJRS take-up rate for both employers and employments, where appropriate. The take-up rate has been calculated using PAYE RTI data, to estimate the eligible population of both employers and employments. An individual with employments with more than one employer is counted once for each employment from which they are on furlough.
Rounding has been applied to the figures in the tables accompanying this release, with counts rounded to the nearest 100 and amounts to the nearest million.
Employments on furlough over time
This section of the release presents the number of employments on furlough each day from the scheme’s start up to 31 October 2020. In previous releases, the figures for 1 July 2020 onwards were based on incomplete data as claims for support from the CJRS could be submitted until 30 November. The figures presented previously for July to September were therefore subject to revision as more data was submitted.
The deadline for claims for the periods covered by this bulletin has now passed and thus the figures are not expected to be revised due to receipt of additional claims.
While the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was announced on 20 March 2020, claims for staff on furlough could be made extending back to 1 March 2020 for jobs which had already been on furlough in the period 1 March to 19 March 2020. Therefore, the daily series included in this release starts before the scheme was announced.
The data presented in this section comes from combining detail about furlough periods from the job level data supplied with larger claims (claims with 100 or more jobs on furlough) and the total number of staff on furlough included in each claim.
More details on the methodology can be found later in this bulletin.
The figures show the total number of employments on furlough by day. Some employees have moved on and off furlough over time. Because not all employments have been on furlough at the same time, the peak figures in the time series are lower than the cumulative total number of jobs on furlough at any time up to the end of June.
This is published in the management information on the scheme and included in the August release. That figure is 9.6 million. Additional jobs could normally not be newly on furlough after the end of June.
Where figure 1 shows a reduction in the number of employments on furlough, it should not necessarily be inferred that employees have returned to work or alternatively that employments has ended. The data presented here should be interpreted in this context.
The key points to note from figure 1 are:
- initially the number of employments on furlough increased quickly following the announcement of the scheme on 20 March, reaching 4.8 million on 23 March and 6.8 million by the end of March
- following further strong growth at the start of April the number of employments on furlough increased gradually and peaked at 8.9 million on 8 May 2020
- after the early May peak, the number of employments on furlough decreased slowly before a fall of around 670,000 employments between the end of May and the start of June
- the number of employments that were on furlough then continued to reduce throughout June to 6.8 million at 30 June
- the number of employments on furlough continued to fall throughout July, August and September to 5.4 million at 31 July, 3.8 million at 31 August and 2.8 million at 30 September
- latest figures show that the number of employments on furlough has continued to fall through October to 2.4 million at 31 October. This is a reduction of 73% from the peak
Figure 1: Total employments on furlough, 1 March 2020 to 31 October 2020
Employments on furlough over time by industry
This section breaks down the overall time series included above by the employer’s industrial sector. Figure 2 is a set of charts, one for each industrial sector. The underlying data for these charts can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.
The key points to note from figure 2 are:
- following on from the last release which covered the period to 30 September, the data shows that furlough of staff across all sectors continued to decrease up to 31 October
- furlough of staff in the wholesale and retail sector peaked on 24 April at 1.85 million employments on furlough. This dropped to 1.33 million employments on furlough at 30 June, 598,900 at 31 August and 356,400 employments on furlough at 31 October
- accommodation and food services peaked at 1.65 million employments on furlough on 10 April. There was a net decline of 325,700 employments to 1.32 million employments on furlough at 30 June. The number of employments continued to fall to 745,800 employments on furlough at 31 August and 601,400 at 31 October
- the manufacturing sector had a peak of 911,000 employments on furlough on 17 April. This reduced to 583,600 at 30 June, 329,400 at 31 August and 188,200 at 31 October
- in construction, furlough peaked on 14 April with 723,600 employments on furlough, with this falling to 404,200 employments on furlough at 30 June, 204,400 at 31 August and 130,700 at 31 October
- furlough in arts and entertainment sector peaked later than other sectors on 15 May 2020 with 455,100 employments on furlough on that date. To 30 June there had been a net decrease of 61,700 to 393,400 employments on furlough in this sector. Figures for this sector show 262,800 employments on furlough at 31 August and 159,600 employments on furlough at 31 October
Figure 2: Total employments on furlough by industry (millions) (largest 15 sectors), 23 March to 31 October 2020
Employments on furlough over time by employer size
In addition to the sectoral breakdown we also provide a breakdown of the number of employments on furlough per day by employer size. The employer size has been calculated based on an estimate of the number of employments eligible to be on furlough. We assume a PAYE scheme to be equivalent of an employer.
Presented in figure 3 is a set of charts, one for each employer size band. The underlying data for these charts can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.
The key points to note from figure 3 are:
- across all employer sizes, the number of employments on furlough continued to decrease between 30 September and 31 October
- 3.45 million employments were on furlough by large employers with 250 or more employments on 5 May (the peak for this category). This reduced to 2.82 million employments on furlough by 30 June, 1.35 million by 31 August and 742,700 employments on furlough by 31 October.
- The 250 or more size band and the 100 to 249 size band had the largest proportionate decrease across all employer size bands between their peak and 31 October (78%)
- large employers with 250 or more employments accounted for 31% of the employments on furlough at 31 October
- employers with 20 to 49 employments had a peak of 1.15 million employments on furlough on 16 April, compared with a peak of 795,400 for employers with 100 to 249 employments on 1 May
- employers with one employment had a peak of 295,700 employments on furlough on 20 April, compared to 219,400 employments on furlough at 30 June. A net decline of 76,300. Figures for this employer size show this decreased further to 161,100 employments on furlough at 31 August and 129,000 employments on furlough at 31 October
Figure 3: Total employments on furlough (millions) by employer size (number of employees), 23 March to 31 October 2020
Employments on furlough over time by Country and Region
This section provides a geographic breakdown of the number of employments on furlough each day from 1 July up to 31 October. This is based on the residential address information that HMRC holds for employees. This does not directly translate to the employee’s usual place of work, or employer’s centre of operations which may be in a different region.
For example, an employee who lives in Wales and normally commutes daily to work in Bristol would be included within the count for Wales, rather than for South West England. At present these statistics are only available for 1 July onwards (see methodology section for more information).
Presented in figure 4 is a set of charts, one for each region. The underlying data for these charts can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.
The key points to note from figure 4 are:
- across Scotland and all English regions, the number of employments on furlough decreased from 30 September to 31 October. In Wales and Northern Ireland there were slight increases in the number of on furlough jobs across this period
- on 1 July there were 4.69 million employments on furlough in England. At 31 July this had fallen to 4.23 million employments on furlough and 3.09 million at 31 August. Figures show that the number of employments on furlough continued to drop throughout September and October to 2.33 million at 30 September and 1.90 million at 31 October
- in London – the English region with the most on furlough staff from July to October, there were 905,100 employments on furlough on 1 July. This decreased by 63,200 to 841,900 employments on furlough at 31 July and 657,200 employments on furlough at 31 August. This figure continued to drop throughout September and October to 523,100 employments on furlough at 30 September and 431,200 at 31 October
- the number of employments on furlough in Scotland on 1 July was 489,900. At 31 July this figure had fallen to 421,200 and at 31 August was 286,900. Through September and October this figure continued to fall to 216,500 at 30 September and 195,200 at 31 October
- the number of employments on furlough in Wales was 247,300 on 1 July, this fell to 224,700 at 31 July and 109,600 at 30 September. At 31 October, the number of employments on furlough in Wales has risen again to 123,000
- on 1 July, the number of on furlough employments in Northern Ireland was 139,100. This fell to 119,400 employments on furlough at 31 July and 82,500 employments on furlough at 31 August. At 30 September 65,100 employments were on furlough and at 31 October the number of employments on furlough was 68,000
Figure 4: Total employments on furlough (millions) by country and region, 1 July to 31 October 2020
Employments on furlough over time by gender
This section provides analysis showing the number of employments on furlough each day from 1 July up to 31 October, broken down by the claimants’ gender. The underlying data for figure 5 can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet. At present these statistics are only available for 1 July onwards (see the methodology section for more information).
The key points to note from figure 5 are:
- since 1 July, more employments have been on furlough with female job holders than where the employee was male
- for employments where the employee was female, there were 2.91 million employments on furlough on 1 July. This decreased to 2.60 million at 31 July and 1.92 million at 31 August. At 30 September this figure was 1.42 million and fell further to 1.19 million employments on furlough at 31 October
- for employments where the employee was male, there were 2.72 million employments on furlough on 1 July. This reduced to 2.46 million at 31 July and 1.74 million at 31 August. This figure continued to decrease throughout September and October to 1.35 million at 30 September and 1.14 million at 31 October
- the August CJRS statistics release reported cumulative figures for the March to June period. Over that period more jobs with male employees than female employees were on furlough . That finding refers to jobs that were on furlough at any time until the end of June when CJRS closed to additional employees being put on furlough (rather than any specific point in time)
Figure 5: Total employments on furlough by gender, 1 July to 31 October 2020
Employments on furlough over time by age
This section provides analysis for the number of employments on furlough each day from 1 July up to 31 October, broken down by age band. The claimant’s age is calculated at 1 March 2020. Figure 6 is a set of charts, one for each age band.
The underlying data for figure 6 can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet. At present these statistics are only available for 1 July onwards (see methodology section for more information).
The key points to note from figure 6 are:
- figures show that across all age bands the number of employments on furlough decreased between 1 July to 31 October
- for employments where the employee was aged 25 to 34, the number of employments was 1.30 million on 1 July, the highest across all age bands. This decreased by 134,500 to 1.17 million employments on furlough at 31 July and fell further to 833,600 at 31 August. This continued to fall throughout September and October to 627,900 employments on furlough at 30 September and 526,000 at 31 October
- the number of employments on furlough with employees in the 18 to 24 age band was 977,000 on 1 July, falling to 844,500 employments on furlough at 31 July. 558,600 employments were on furlough at 31 August, declining to 398,400 at 30 September and 325,300 at 31 October
- where the employee was 65 or over, the number of employments on furlough was 243,400 on 1 July. Figures for this age band show the number of employments on furlough decreased to 225,800 at 31 July, 168,300 at 31 August and 132,500 at 30 September. The number of employments on furlough continued to fall through October to 111,900 at 31 October
Figure 6: Total employments on furlough (millions) by age of employee, 1 July to 31 October 2020
Employments on furlough over time by furlough type
This section provides a breakdown of the overall time series by employments on full and flexible furlough. On 1 July, the option was introduced for employers to furlough their employees for part of their usual hours, with the employee free to work the remainder. Therefore, the time series shown in figure 7 starts at 1 July.
The underlying data for figure 7 can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.
The key points to note in figure 7 are:
- the number of employments on furlough on a full-time basis has decreased month on month from July to October. The number of employments on full furlough was 4.51 million at 1 July, falling to 3.97 million at 31 July and 2.51 million at 31 August. These figures continued to fall through September and October to 1.68 million at 30 September and 1.36 employments on full furlough at 31 October
- the number of employments claimed for while the employee was working some of their usual hours has remained steady since this was made possible on 1 July. At 1 July there were 1.15 million such employments with a small reduction to 977,200 at 31 October
- although the number of employments on flexible furlough has remained relatively constant between July and October, the jobs on flexible furlough during this period may have changed over time. Some employments may have moved between full and flexible furlough, others may have returned to work and some employments may have been terminated
Figure 7: Total employments on furlough by furlough type, 1 July to 31 October 2020
Furlough by Employer size at 31 October
Where it has been possible to match CJRS data to Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI), we have estimated the size of each employer in terms of number of employees potentially eligible for CJRS support.
For this data, we have assumed that PAYE scheme is the equivalent to an employer. For some employers, this is not an exact one-to-one equivalent.
For example, some organisations operate multiple payrolls for different groups of employees and in other situations, a group of companies may pool their payrolls together under one PAYE scheme. However, in our view PAYE schemes provides a reasonable proxy for employers for the purposes of this release.
The employer size has been calculated based on an estimate of the number of employments eligible to be on furlough.
The key points to note from tables 1a and 1b are, as at 31 October:
- 28% of employers had staff on furlough at 31 October under CJRS and 8% of employments were on furlough
- as at 31 October, employers with 250+ employees were most likely to have claimed under CJRS to support the furlough of staff, with 49% of employers of this size having at least 1 employee on furlough
- employers with 250 or more employees had a total of 742,700 employments on furlough at 31 October, the highest of all employer sizes. However, this represents just 4% of employments eligible across employers of this size
- the figures for the value of claims do not take account of voluntary repayments
Table 1a: CJRS claims by employer size as at 31 October – employer level
| Employer size | Employers with staff on furlough | Take-up rate | Value of claims made for periods to 31 October (£ million) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 129,000 | 18% | 1,232 |
| 2 to 4 | 208,300 | 32% | 3,891 |
| 5 to 9 | 88,100 | 37% | 3,905 |
| 10 to 19 | 51,500 | 39% | 4,109 |
| 20 to 49 | 39,800 | 46% | 6,072 |
| 50 to 99 | 12,800 | 45% | 3,770 |
| 100 to 249 | 7,700 | 46% | 4,269 |
| 250+ | 5,600 | 49% | 16,064 |
| Unknown | 100 | - | 2 |
| Total | 542,900 | 28% | 43,314 |
Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data
Table 1b: CJRS claims by employer size as at 31 October – employment level
| Employer size | Employments on furlough | Eligible employments | Take-up rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 129,000 | 733,100 | 18% |
| 2 to 4 | 366,800 | 1,682,600 | 22% |
| 5 to 9 | 274,500 | 1,528,400 | 18% |
| 10 to 19 | 246,900 | 1,754,200 | 14% |
| 20 to 49 | 302,600 | 2,554,200 | 12% |
| 50 to 99 | 163,400 | 1,933,700 | 8% |
| 100 to 249 | 173,600 | 2,555,500 | 7% |
| 250+ | 742,700 | 16,935,300 | 4% |
| Unknown | 200 | - | - |
| Total | 2,399,600 | 29,677,300 | 8% |
Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data
Note: the number of employments on furlough in the unknown size category is not directly comparable with the number of employers in the equivalent category in table 1a.
Furlough by Sector at 31 October
This section presents analysis of CJRS claims according to the primary economic sector of employers’ activity. The take-up rate is also reported in this table for both employments and employers. This is presented in tables 2a and 2b, below.
Key points from these tables are, as at 31 October:
- the sector with the highest proportion of its workforce eligible for furlough that were on furlough was the accommodation and food services sector at 29% followed by arts, entertainment and recreation at 25%. In all, 46% of employers in both the accommodation and food services sector and the arts, entertainment and recreation sector were using the furlough scheme at the end of October
- the wholesale and retail sector were responsible for the greatest total value of claims up to the end of October at £8.0 billion. Accommodation and food services, and manufacturing were the two sectors with the next highest values of claims to date by the end of October, with £6.9 billion and £5.2 billion claimed respectively
More details on this are available in the methodology section.
Table 2a: CJRS claims by sector as at 31 October 2020 – employer level
| Sector | Employers with staff on furlough | Take-up rate | Value of claims made for periods to 31 October (£ million) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 3,100 | 9% | 130 |
| Mining and quarrying | 200 | 23% | 99 |
| Manufacturing | 35,300 | 35% | 5,223 |
| Energy production and supply | 300 | 25% | 97 |
| Water supply, sewerage and waste | 1,700 | 31% | 229 |
| Construction | 59,300 | 26% | 3,810 |
| Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles | 81,900 | 34% | 7,962 |
| Transportation and storage | 21,100 | 29% | 2,539 |
| Accommodation and food services | 58,700 | 46% | 6,890 |
| Information and communication | 32,300 | 21% | 1,316 |
| Finance and insurance | 7,300 | 21% | 399 |
| Real estate | 14,400 | 31% | 753 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 81,800 | 26% | 3,355 |
| Administrative and support services | 51,000 | 31% | 4,122 |
| Public administration and defence; social security | 200 | 3% | 54 |
| Education | 12,400 | 32% | 1,325 |
| Health and social work | 24,800 | 25% | 1,587 |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 18,200 | 45% | 1,974 |
| Other service activities | 33,700 | 36% | 1,275 |
| Households | 1,300 | 2% | 44 |
| Unknown and other | 3,800 | - | 130 |
| Total | 542,900 | 28% | 43,314 |
Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data and Inter-Departmental Business Register
Table 2b: CJRS claims by sector as at 31 October – employment level
| Sector | Employments on furlough | Take-up rate |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 6,900 | 4% |
| Mining and quarrying | 1,600 | 3% |
| Manufacturing | 188,200 | 8% |
| Energy production and supply | 900 | 1% |
| Water supply, sewerage and waste | 6,800 | 4% |
| Construction | 130,700 | 10% |
| Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles | 356,400 | 8% |
| Transportation and storage | 121,600 | 9% |
| Accommodation and food services | 601,400 | 29% |
| Information and communication | 76,900 | 6% |
| Finance and insurance | 19,100 | 2% |
| Real estate | 38,000 | 9% |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 193,300 | 9% |
| Administrative and support services | 213,400 | 8% |
| Public administration and defence; social security | 5,000 | - |
| Education | 62,500 | 2% |
| Health and social work | 96,900 | 2% |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 159,600 | 25% |
| Other service activities | 102,100 | 18% |
| Households | 1,700 | 1% |
| Unknown and other | 16,700 | - |
| Total | 2,399,600 | 8% |
Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data and Inter-Departmental Business Register
Furlough by Countries and Regions at 31 October including gender breakdown
We also provide a geographic breakdown of CJRS claims based on the residential address information that HMRC holds for employees. This does not directly translate to the employee’s usual place of work, or employer’s centre of operations which may be in a different region.
For example, an employee who lives in Wales and normally commutes daily to work in Bristol would be included within the count for Wales, rather than for South West England.
Figure 8 shows the number of employments on furlough by each of the English regions, and the totals for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. For some employments it has not been possible so far to link the employment to the employees’ area of residence and these are included in the unknown category.
The key points from figure 8 are, as at 31 October:
- London and the South East accounted for 731,200 of the employments on furlough
- the East Midlands and West Midlands had a total of 333,200 employments on furlough under CJRS
- Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 386,200 employments claimed for under CJRS
- overall, where it was possible to link the data, across the UK, 1.19 million women were on furlough at the end of October compared with 1.14 million men
- for 74,900 employments it has not been possible to link the employments to other HMRC data to determine the region of residence and gender of the employees on furlough
- in most countries and regions more women than men were on furlough at 31 October, the exceptions to this being the London where 210,300 women were on furlough and 220,900 men, and West Midlands where 93,500 women were on furlough and 96,800 men
Figure 8: Employments on furlough as at 31 October, by Country and Region and gender
| Region | Female | Male | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 210,300 | 220,900 | 431,200 |
| South East | 158,800 | 141,200 | 300,000 |
| North West | 123,800 | 121,200 | 244,900 |
| East | 106,600 | 93,900 | 200,500 |
| West Midlands | 93,500 | 96,800 | 190,300 |
| South West | 85,200 | 74,800 | 160,000 |
| Yorkshire And The Humber | 79,900 | 77,300 | 157,200 |
| East Midlands | 74,100 | 68,800 | 142,900 |
| North East | 36,600 | 33,800 | 70,400 |
| Wales | 64,600 | 58,400 | 123,000 |
| Scotland | 100,500 | 94,700 | 195,200 |
| Northern Ireland | 34,700 | 33,300 | 68,000 |
Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information
Figure 9 shows the take-up rate of employments on furlough within each country and region using CJRS with a gender breakdown.
The key points to note from figure 9 are, as at 31 October:
- there was broad consistency in furlough rates across the nations and regions of the UK at the end of October. London and Wales had the highest take-up rates of 10% against the UK average of 8%
- as shown in figure 9, the take-up rate is similar for men and women within all regions and countries of the UK
Figure 9: Employment furlough take-up rate at 31 October, by Country and Region and gender
| Region | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|
| London | 10% | 11% |
| South East | 8% | 7% |
| North West | 8% | 8% |
| East of England | 8% | 7% |
| West Midlands | 8% | 8% |
| South West | 7% | 6% |
| Yorkshire And The Humber | 7% | 7% |
| East Midlands | 7% | 6% |
| North East | 7% | 6% |
| Wales | 10% | 9% |
| Scotland | 8% | 8% |
| Northern Ireland | 9% | 9% |
Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information
The data for both figures 8 and 9 can be accessed from the accompanying spreadsheet.
Furlough by Local Authority and Parliamentary Constituency at 31 October including gender breakdown
Accompanying this release is a separate file providing counts of the number of employments on furlough by Local Authority and UK Parliamentary Constituency based on each employee’s residential address.
In figures 10 and 11 we present maps representing the take-up rates for employments on furlough for both the local authorities and UK Parliamentary Constituencies. Darker shades indicate a higher take-up rate.
The key points to note for local authorities, at 31 October, are:
- at 14% Crawley had the highest take-up rate across the UK
- Boston had the lowest proportion of employments on furlough at 4%.
- At 40,000, Birmingham had the highest number of employments on furlough. This was followed by Glasgow City with 26,500 employments on furlough. The take-up rates in these areas were 9% and 10%, respectively
- in Scotland, City of Edinburgh, Glasgow City and East Renfrewshirehad the highest take-up rates at 10%. City of Edinburgh had 24,500 employments on furlough
- for Northern Ireland, Belfast, Newry, Mourne and Down and Ards and North Down had the highest take-up rate of 10%. Belfast had 14,100 employments on furlough
- in Wales, Conwy, Pembrokeshire and Gwynedd had the highest employment take-up rates of 13%. Cardiff had the highest number of employments on furlough with 16,000
Figure 10: Employments on furlough as a proportion of eligible employments at 31 October, by Local Authority
The key points to note here for UK Parliamentary Constituencies, at 31 October, are:
- Dwyfor Meirionnydd and Aberconwy and had the highest take-up rate at 16%. This was followed by Hayes and Harlington, Feltham and Heston, Tottenham, East Ham and Crawley at 14%
- the rate of employments on furlough was lowest in the Scunthorpe constituency at 4%
- the West Ham constituency had the highest number of employments on furlough, with 12,000 employments on furlough. Seven of the ten constituencies with the highest number of on furlough employments fall within the London area
- the Belfast North, North Down, Belfast West, Belfast East, East Antrim, South Down and East Londonderry constituencies had the highest take-up rates at 10%. Belfast South had the highest number of employments on furlough at 4,500
- the Glasgow Central constituency had the highest take-up rate at 12%. Edinburgh North and Leith had the highest number of employments on furlough in Scotland with 6,500
- in Wales, Dwyfor Meirionnydd and Aberconwy had the highest employment take-up rates at 16%. The Cardiff South and Penarth constituency had the highest number of employments on furlough at 5,600
Figure 11: Employments on furlough as a proportion of eligible employments at 31 October, by Parliamentary constituency
Furlough by age at 31 October including gender breakdown
This section of the release describes the number of employments on furlough as at 31 October by employees’ age and gender. This breakdown is based on the most up-to-date demographic information that HMRC holds on the individuals for whom claims have been made. The age of employees is calculated as at 1 March 2020.
The key points to note from figure 12 are:
- female claimants account for more of the employments on furlough than males in each of the age categories, bar 55 to 64 and 65 and over
- the 25 to 34 age band had the highest number of claimants for both females and males, 268,300 and 257,700 respectively
Figure 12: Employments on furlough as at 31 October, by age and gender of employee
| Age band | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|
| Under 18 | 25,000 | 18,900 |
| 18 to 24 | 171,800 | 153,500 |
| 25 to 34 | 268,300 | 257,700 |
| 35 to 44 | 246,100 | 235,200 |
| 45 to 54 | 240,400 | 226,000 |
| 55 to 64 | 184,100 | 185,700 |
| 65 and over | 52,600 | 59,300 |
Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information
Figure 13 shows the take-up rate of employments on furlough broken down by age and gender.
The key point to note from figure 13 are, as at 31 October:
- at 12%, the under 18 age group had the highest take-up rate for female claimants. For male claimants the under 18 and the 65 and over age groups had the highest take-up rates at 11%
Figure 13: Employment furlough take-up rate at 31 October, by age and gender of the employee
| Age band | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|
| Under 18 | 12% | 11% |
| 18 to 24 | 10% | 9% |
| 25 to 34 | 8% | 7% |
| 35 to 44 | 8% | 7% |
| 45 to 54 | 7% | 7% |
| 55 to 64 | 8% | 8% |
| 65 and over | 11% | 11% |
Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information
Full and flexible furlough use by sector at 31 October
The accompanying spreadsheet presents analysis that provides a sector breakdown of the figures for employments on furlough in each country and region as at 31 October. The analysis is based on where employees live rather than where they work.
Figure 14 shows the number of employments on full and flexible furlough at 31 October by sector. The key points to note, as at 31 October:
The key points to note from figure 14, as at 31 October:
- 196,400 employers had at least one employment on flexible furlough
- 977,200 employments were on flexible furlough, 41% of the total employments on furlough
- at 50%, the other service activities sector had the highest proportion of employments on flexible furlough. This was followed by the accommodation and food services sector at 48%
- 1.36 million employments were on full furlough, 56% of the total employments on furlough. Missing information on some employments – for example incomplete or not fully processed spreadsheet-type returns for employers putting 100 or more staff on furlough – means that whether an employee has been on flexible furlough is not known in 3% of cases
Figure 14: Employments on full and flexible furlough at 31 October, by sector
| Sector | Employments on full furlough | Employments on flexible furlough | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 4,400 | 2,500 | 6,900 |
| Mining and quarrying | 1,100 | 500 | 1,600 |
| Manufacturing | 100,300 | 86,400 | 188,200 |
| Energy production and supply | 700 | 200 | 900 |
| Water supply, sewerage and waste | 4,600 | 2,200 | 6,800 |
| Construction | 92,200 | 37,900 | 130,700 |
| Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles | 209,400 | 143,700 | 356,400 |
| Transportation and storage | 78,900 | 41,000 | 121,600 |
| Accommodation and food services | 264,000 | 289,100 | 601,400 |
| Information and communication | 50,500 | 25,800 | 76,900 |
| Finance and insurance | 13,800 | 5,200 | 19,100 |
| Real estate | 27,900 | 10,100 | 38,000 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 127,800 | 63,100 | 193,300 |
| Administrative and support services | 143,100 | 67,700 | 213,400 |
| Public administration and defence; social security | 3,500 | 1,300 | 5,000 |
| Education | 35,900 | 26,200 | 62,500 |
| Health and social work | 52,700 | 43,400 | 96,900 |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 84,800 | 71,500 | 159,600 |
| Other service activities | 50,300 | 51,400 | 102,100 |
| Households | 1,000 | 700 | 1,700 |
| Unknown and other | 8,100 | 7,300 | 16,700 |
Full and flexible furlough use by Country and Region at 31 October
Figure 15 shows the number of employments on full and flexible furlough at 31 October by Country and Region. The key points to note are:
- at 48%, South West had the highest proportion of employments on flexible furlough
- Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 165,300 employments on flexible furlough
- London had the highest number of employments on flexible furlough at 153,500, followed by the South East at 125,600
Figure 15: Employments on full and flexible furlough at 31 October, by Country and Region
| Region | Employments on full furlough | Employments on flexible furlough | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 277,600 | 153,500 | 431,200 |
| South East | 174,300 | 125,600 | 300,000 |
| North West | 140,300 | 104,700 | 244,900 |
| East | 117,700 | 82,800 | 200,500 |
| West Midlands | 106,200 | 84,100 | 190,300 |
| South West | 83,500 | 76,600 | 160,000 |
| Yorkshire And The Humber | 85,400 | 71,800 | 157,200 |
| East Midlands | 80,100 | 62,900 | 142,900 |
| North East | 38,400 | 32,100 | 70,400 |
| Wales | 70,900 | 52,100 | 123,000 |
| Scotland | 110,100 | 85,100 | 195,200 |
| Northern Ireland | 40,000 | 28,100 | 68,000 |
Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information
Background
The government introduced the Coronavirus Job Retentions Scheme (CJRS) to support employers through the COVID-19 period, this has commonly been referred to as the furlough scheme. It works by providing grants to employers of up to a maximum 80% of salary to a maximum value of £2,500 per employee (until the end of August).
Up to the end of July, the scheme also met some of the cost of employer pension contributions and the employer National Insurance Contributions.
The scheme is based around HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system. For an employer to qualify for the scheme they need to have created a PAYE scheme by 19 March 2020. In these statistics, an employer is defined as a PAYE scheme.
The rules for an employment to qualify to be covered by the scheme are set out in guidance, and two of the key rules are that the employee on furlough must have been employed on 19 March 2020 and the employer must have submitted a Real Time Information (RTI) submission to HMRC for the employee by this date. Further information on the qualifying criteria is available online.
The scheme closed to new entrants from 30 June 2020. After this date, employers have only been able to furlough employees they put on furlough for a full three-week period prior to 30 June 2020.
As a consequence of the closure of the scheme to additional employees and the minimum three-week furlough period that applied until the end of June, the final date that an employer could have put an employee on furlough for the first time was 10 June 2020.
Employers had until 31 July 2020 to make any claims in respect of the period to 30 June 2020. A small number of claims have been made since this date. These claims relate to exceptions as set out in the CJRS guidance (for example, for employees being put on furlough who have been absent from work and who had been paid Statutory Maternity Pay).
Changes to the scheme from 1 July
From 1 July 2020, employers have the flexibility to bring employees on furlough back to work part time. Additionally, employers have the flexibility to decide the hours and shift patterns of their employees – with the government continuing to pay 80% of salaries for the hours they do not work.
From 1 September 2020, the scheme supported 70% of salaries for hours not worked, reducing to 60% from 1 October 2020.
When claiming the CJRS grant for hours on furlough, employers will need to report and claim for a minimum period of a week. Employers had until 30 November 2020 to submit claims for support from the CJRS.
Changes to the scheme from 1 November
The government has announced an extension to CJRS to support individuals and businesses who are impacted by disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19). The CJRS will remain open until 30 April 2021. For claim periods from 1 November 2020 to 30 April 2021, employers with a PAYE scheme can claim 80% of an employee’s usual salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month.
See guidance on applying for support from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and further details.
Glossary
An employer is defined within this release as a Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Scheme. In some circumstances this does not map directly to what is commonly understood to be an employer.
For example, some organisations operate multiple payrolls, and in other situations, a group of companies may pool their payrolls together under one PAYE scheme. However, in our view PAYE schemes provides a reasonable proxy for employers for the purposes of this release.
An employment is defined within this release as anyone who meets the scheme criteria set out within the published guidance. We have applied this definition in order to keep the presentation simple and the difficulty in separating out Office Holders (such as directors) from what are generally considered employees. Further information on the eligibility criteria is set out in the background section above.
Measuring the data
Data source and collection
The data for this release comes from HM Revenue and Customs’ CJRS claims. It covers the whole population rather than a sample of people or companies, and it will allow for more detailed estimates of the population.
The release is classed as Experimental Statistics as the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase. As a result, the series are subject to revisions. Information about what the term Experimental Statistics means is published by the Office for National Statistics.
Additional data from HMRC’s Real Time Information system has been matched with CJRS data in order to produce the statistics released here.
Coverage
This publication covers all CJRS claims made by employers from the start of the scheme up to 30 November 2020 for support for the wages of staff on furlough up to 31 October 2020.
Upcoming changes
The next release of statistics on the Job Retention Scheme will include figures on the CJRS extension.
Methodology
This section provides notes on the methodology and implications for interpreting the figures.
The statistics in this release count employments. Therefore (for example), an employee with jobs at two employers will be counted twice if both jobs are put on furlough.
The eligible population, used to calculate take-up figures and the breakdown by employer size, is based on a list of employees employed on 19 March 2020 and included in PAYE Real Time Information submissions for the 2019 to 2020 tax year.
Only employments in RTI submissions received by HMRC by 19 March 2020 are counted. Following the criteria for qualifying for the scheme, this is supplemented by a list of people who were employed on 28 February 2020 but who left their job before 19 March and who were later re-employed by the same employer.
In some circumstances HMRC holds incomplete information about employments, for example where a leaving date had not been submitted by employer. In this situation, an estimate of the probability that an individual was employed on the qualifying dates has been used.
The figures in this release contain a downward revision to the number of employments eligible for CJRS. This is due to a refinement in the methodology and results in a small increase in our estimates of the employer and employment take-up rates.
The assessment of whether a person was employed on the qualifying dates is based on the methodology used for the joint HMRC/ONS statistics release, Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, last released in December 2020.
Employers making claims for 100 or more employees at a time are required to submit the details of the employees on furlough in a spreadsheet-type file. While these claims have been processed from a customer service perspective, the processing of this information for these statistics has been complex and the processing of data on some employments has not been completed.
This is a factor behind the unknown category in the tables. The completeness of this data has gradually improved since the first release, and we expect some further (smaller) improvements.
The geographic and flexible furlough breakdowns of employments include all employees that employers have put on furlough where it has been possible to link claim data on employments on furlough to classifying information (such as the employee’s gender and address).
The linking has been performed using employees’ National Insurance numbers to data held within HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. When the employer-submitted National Insurance numbers are not of sufficient quality to be matched with other HMRC data, the employments have been categorised as ‘unknown’.
The geographic breakdowns in the tables and maps use a postcode lookup file from Office for National Statistics (ONS) data to link UK postcodes to geographic areas.
Industrial sector information is based on the Interdepartmental Business Register (IDBR) produced by the ONS. Where PAYE schemes are absent from the IDBR, we have used sector information from Companies House, linking on employer name where possible.
This provides Standard Industrial Classification codes (UK SIC 2007) for employers that have made a claim. Where we have unable to determine SIC codes, we have reported the sector as ‘unknown’.
The time series in this bulletin show figures for the number of employments on furlough each day, using all claims submitted to HMRC by 30 November 2020. The closing date for claims for periods to the end of June was 31 July but schemes were able to submit claims for July onwards until 30 November.
In producing the time series statistics some challenges had to be tackled. These included dealing with data on amendments to claims and claims for overlapping periods. In addition, claims for 100 or more staff on furlough may include staff on furlough for varying periods.
These factors combined with some incomplete data (as mentioned above) make counting the number of employees on furlough over time complex. The method employed is designed to generally prevent overcounting employments and may in certain circumstances very slightly undercount.
Consequently, for the period to the end of June, the time series presented in this bulletin may typically slightly undercount the number of employments on furlough.
We welcome questions and feedback. Our email address is: cjrs.statistics.enquiries@hmrc.gov.uk
Strengths and limitations
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) grants pre-release access to Official Statistics publications, and in accordance with the HMRC policy, pre-release access has been granted to a number of people to enable the preparation of a ministerial briefing.
Experimental Statistics status
The release is classed as Experimental Statistics as the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase. This does not mean that the statistics are of low quality, but it does signify that the statistics are new and still being developed. As the methodologies are refined and improved, there may be revisions to these statistics.
Rather than waiting until the development work has been completed, the statistics are being published now to involve potential users in developing the statistics. We hope that this encourages users to provide us with their thoughts and suggestions of how useful the statistics are and what can be done to improve them. Comments can be sent by email to CJRS.Statistics.Enquiries@hmrc.gov.uk.
More information about what it means for Official Statistics to be classified as Experimental Statistics is available from the Office for Statistics Regulation.
Office for Statistics regulation review
These statistics have been produced quickly in response to developing world events. The Office for Statistics Regulation, on behalf of the UK Statistics Authority, has reviewed them against several key aspects of the Code of Practice for Statistics and regards them as consistent with the Code’s pillars of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value.
Strengths of the data
The data used in this release includes all claims made by employers up until 30 November 2020 for support for the wages of staff on furlough up to 31 October 2020 and thus covers the complete employer population having made at least one CJRS claim. We have linked CJRS data to Pay As You Earn Real Time Information data (PAYE RTI) to provide the additional information presented in this release.
Revisions
The figures in this release incorporate data on claims received by HMRC up to 30 November and cover employments on furlough up to 31 October 2020.
In future iterations of this statistics release there may be some further revisions reflecting improvements to the data processing and methodology.
Related links
Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: December 2020 - Employee and earnings statistics from PAYE Real Time Information.
Labour market in the regions of the UK: December 2020 - Regional breakdowns of changes in UK employment, unemployment and economic activity
Employment in the UK: December 2020 - Estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for the UK.
Average weekly earnings in Great Britain: December 2020 - Estimates of growth in earnings for employees before tax and other deductions from pay.
HMRC coronavirus (COVID-19) statistics - Collection of HMRC data regarding COVID-19 response initiatives and policy.