Official Statistics

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme statistics: January 2021

Published 28 January 2021

Overview

This is the eighth release of Official Statistics on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). This release provides analysis of claims for periods up to 31 December 2020. The data used includes claims submitted to HMRC by 14 January 2021.

The data for December is incomplete as while claims relating to December should have been filed by 14 January 2021, employers could file claims later with the agreement of HMRC if they had a reasonable excuse. December claims could also be amended until 28 January. Together these factors are likely to have a small effect on the statistics: it is estimated that the number of claims reported for December could increase by around 1%. The December figures should therefore be considered as provisional and will be revised in a future release.

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.

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 furloughed 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 2020, except in certain exceptional circumstances, staff who had not already been furloughed 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 furloughed employee 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 30 April 2021.

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:

For press queries, please contact:

  • Dan Allen, tel: 03000 585 024
  • Lisa Billard, tel: 07773 091 264

Next release

The next release will be published on 25 February 2021.

Main points

The key points from this release covering the period to 31 December 2020 are below. Figures for December 2020 are provisional and subject to revision as additional claims for the period are received.

  • more jobs were furloughed and supported by the job retention scheme in November and December than October. Compared with 31 October, furloughing of staff was higher at 31 December in all sectors, except mining and quarrying
  • furloughing of staff in the wholesale and retail sector peaked on 24 April at 1.9 million employments furloughed. This dropped to 356,400 employments furloughed at 31 October. The number of employments furloughed increased in November to 739,400 at 30 November. Provisional figures show that by the end of December this had decreased to 689,500 employments furloughed
  • at 31 October, 737,000 employments were furloughed by large employers with 250 or more employees. This increased to 1.22 million employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments furloughed decreased to 1.12 million at 31 December
  • across the UK, where it was possible to link the data, 1.92 million females were furloughed at 30 November compared with 1.79 million men. Provisional estimates show the number of females furloughed decreased to 1.88 million at 31 December while the number of males increased to 1.85 million
  • 37% of employers had staff furloughed at 30 November under CJRS and 13% of employments were furloughed. Provisional estimates show 36% of employers had staff furloughed at 31 December under CJRS and 13% of employments were furloughed
  • compared to 30 November, the number of regions where more women than men were furloughed had dropped, with the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, London and the West Midlands having more men than women furloughed at 31 December
  • there was broad consistency in furlough rates across the nations and regions of the UK at the end of November. London had the highest take-up rate of 15% against the UK average of 13%
  • at 30 November, the 25 to 34 age band continued to have the highest number of claimants for both females and males, 429,300 and 430,300 respectively. These figures dropped by 421,100 and 419,000 respectively at 31 December
  • the under 18 age band had the highest take up rate for both females and males, 41% and 30% respectively at 31 November
  • at 30 November, 1.37 million employments were on partial furlough, 35% of the total employments furloughed. This increased to 1.45 million employments furloughed at 31 December, 38% of the total employments furloughed
  • across all countries and regions, at both 30 November and 31 December, the accommodation and food services sector had the highest number of employments furloughed. This was followed by the wholesale and retail sector

About the data in this release

The data used in this release comprises the CJRS claims made up to 14 January 2021. 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 furloughed by day, also broken down by sector and employer size

  • the number of employments furloughed by day, for July onwards broken down by:

    • country and region
    • gender
    • age
    • type of furlough (fully furloughed or flexibly (or partially) furloughed)

Updated and new tables:

  • figures for the use of CJRS extension as at 30 November 2020 and preliminary figures for the use of CJRS as at 31 December 2020, by the following categories:
    • 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 furloughed.

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 furloughed over time

This section of the release presents the number of employments furloughed each day from the scheme’s start up to 31 December 2020.

The figures for December 2020 are based on claims received to the deadline of 14 January 2021. In some circumstances, late claims can be made with a reasonable excuse and in agreement with HMRC. Claims may also be amended until 28 January 2021. Therefore the data for December 2020 is incomplete and should be considered to be provisional. It is estimated that the overall total number of employments furloughed in December will be in the region of 1% higher once all claims are submitted and revisions applied.

While the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was announced on 20 March 2020, claims for furloughed staff could be made extending back to 1 March 2020 for jobs which had already been furloughed 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 furloughed jobs) and the total number of furloughed staff included in each claim.

More details on the methodology can be found later in this bulletin.

The data in this release shows the total number of employments furloughed each day from March to December 2020. In contrast, previously, the first three releases of these statistics, published in June to August 2020, reported estimates of the total number of jobs that had been furloughed at any time over the March to June period, based on the latest data available at the time of those releases.

With the introduction of flexible furlough on 1 July, no additional employments could be furloughed under the scheme and this statistical series began reporting estimates of the number of jobs furloughed each day, with additional breakdowns for the last day in each month.

When the CJRS extension was introduced on 1 November 2020, it again became possible to claim support for furloughing jobs that had not been previously furloughed. The next release will amend the figures given for the eligible population for the CJRS extension to reflect the updated criteria for which jobs could be furloughed from November onwards. This change will have the effect of increasing the reported take-up slightly in those sectors where the number of payrolled employees has fallen during the pandemic.

The chart in figure 1 shows the number of jobs furloughed under claims for support to the CJRS. Key points to note from figure 1 are:

  • initially the number of employments furloughed 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 furloughed increased gradually and peaked at 8.9 million on 8 May 2020. After the early May peak, the number of employments furloughed 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 furloughed then continued to reduce from until the end of October, falling from 6.8 million at 30 June to 2.4 million at 31 October
  • latest figures show that the number of employments furloughed increased by 1.3 million at the start of November and increased further to a peak of 4.1 million on 11 November before falling back slightly to 3.9 million employments furloughed at 30 November.
  • provisional estimates for December show that the number of employments furloughed reduced in early December before increasing back to 3.9 million on 25 December. The number of jobs furloughed under the CJRS then reduced slightly to 3.8 million on 31 December.

Figure 1: Total employments furloughed, 23 March 2020 to 31 December 2020

Employments furloughed 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 of 15 industrial sectors experiencing higher numbers of jobs furloughed. The underlying data for this figure and 6 other sector categories not shown in the chart 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 31 October, the data shows that furloughing of staff across all sectors, bar mining and quarrying, increased up to 31 December
  • furloughing of staff in the wholesale and retail sector peaked on 24 April at 1.85 million employments furloughed. This dropped to 356,400 employments furloughed at 31 October. The number of employments furloughed increased in November to 739,400 at 30 November. Provisional figures show that at 31 December furloughing in this sector had decreased a little lower to 689,500 employments furloughed
  • accommodation and food services peaked at 1.65 million employments furloughed on 10 April, this fell to 601,400 employments furloughed at 31 October. There was a net increase of 490,100 to 1.09 million employments furloughed at the start of November, this fell to 1.08 million employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional figures show that the number of employments furloughed decreased to 1.04 million at 31 December
  • the manufacturing sector had a peak of 911,000 employments furloughed on 17 April. This reduced to 188,200 at 31 October. At 30 November the number of employments furloughed increased to 219,400, and provisional estimates show that this figure had risen to 270,200 at 31 December
  • in construction, furloughing peaked on 14 April with 723,600 employments furloughed, with this falling to 130,700 at 31 October. This figure increased to 169,700 at 30 November and provisional estimates show that at the end of December the number of employments furloughed had risen further to 193,400
  • furloughing in arts and entertainment sector peaked later than other sectors on 15 May 2020 with 455,100 employments furloughed on that date. By 31 October this had dropped to 159,600 employments furloughed. At 30 November the number of employments furloughed had increased to 292,600. Provisional figures show that this figure decreased to 273,800 employments furloughed at 31 December

Figure 2: Total employments furloughed by industry (millions) (largest 15 sectors), 23 March to 31 December 2020

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by employer size

In addition to the sectoral breakdown we also provide a breakdown of the number of employments furloughed per day by employer size. The employer size has been calculated based on an estimate of the number of employments eligible to be furloughed. 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 furloughed increased between 31 October and 31 December
  • at 31 October, 737,000 employments were furloughed by large employers with 250 or more employees. This increased to 1.22 million employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments furloughed decreased to 1.12 million at 31 December
  • employers with 20 to 49 employments had 303,500 employments furloughed on 31 October. This figure increased to 519,100 employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments furloughed continued to increase to 550,800 at 31 December
  • employers with one employment had 127,900 employments furloughed at 31 October. This increased by 46,900 to 174,800 employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional figures show that this figure dropped to 173,900 at 31 December

Figure 3: Total employments furloughed (millions) by employer size (number of employees), 23 March to 31 December 2020

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by Country and Region

This section provides a geographic breakdown of the number of employments furloughed each day from 1 July up to 31 December. 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 all English regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the number of employments furloughed increased from 31 October to 31 December
  • 1.90 million employments were furloughed in England at 31 October. This figure increased through November to 3.21 million at 30 November. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments furlough decreased in December to 3.13 million at 31 December
  • in London – the English region with the most furloughed staff from July to December, there were 431,200 employments furloughed at 31 October. This increased to 644,400 employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional estimates show a decrease in December to 641,200 employments furloughed
  • the number of employments furloughed in Scotland on 31 October was 195,200. This figure increased to 228,300 employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional figures for December show an increase in the number of employments furloughed to 282,800 at 31 December
  • the number of employments furloughed in Wales was 123,000 at 31 October. This increased to 125,000 employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional estimates show the number of employments furloughed increased by 30,500 to 155,500 at 31 December
  • on 31 October, the number of furloughed employments in Northern Ireland was 68,000. This increased to 79,300 employments furloughed at 30 November. Provisional figures show that the number of employments furloughed continue to increase through December to 94,800 at 31 December

Figure 4: Total employments furloughed (millions) by country and region, 1 July to 31 December 2020

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by gender

This section provides new analysis showing the number of employments furloughed each day from 1 July up to 31 December, 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 furloughed with female job holders than where the employee was male
  • for employments where the employee was female, there were 1.19 million employments furloughed at 31 October. This increased to 1.92 million employments furloughed at 30 November. Preliminary figures show that this number decreased throughout December to 1.88 million at 31 December
  • for employments where the employee was male, there were 1.14 million at 31 October. At 30 November this had increased to 1.79 million employments furloughed. Preliminary data shows that this figure continued to increase through December to 1.85 million employments furloughed at 31 December

Figure 5: Total employments furloughed by gender, 1 July to 31 December 2020

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by age

This section provides analysis for the number of employments furloughed each day from 1 July up to 31 December, 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 furloughed increased between 31 October and 31 December
  • for employments where the employee was aged 25 to 34, the number of employments was 526,000 on 31 October, the highest across all age bands. This increased by 333,600 to 859,600 at 30 November. Preliminary figures show that this figure continue to rise to 862,700 at 31 December
  • the number of employments furloughed with employees in the 18 to 24 age band was 325,300 on 31 October. This increased to 650,800 on 30 November. At 31 December, preliminary data shows that 643,600 employments were furloughed
  • where the employee was 65 or over, the number of employments furloughed was 111,900 at 31 October. At 30 November, the number of employments furloughed had risen to 134,400. Preliminary estimates show that the number of employments decreased to 130,300 at 31 December

Figure 6: Total employments furloughed (millions) by age of employee, 1 July to 31 December 2020

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by furlough type

This section provides a breakdown of the overall time series by employments furloughed fully and partially furloughed. 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 furloughed on a full-time basis has decreased month on month from July to 31 October where it stood at 1.36 million. The number of employments fully furloughed then increased through November to 2.36 million at 30 November. Preliminary figures show that the number of employments fully furloughed fell in December to 2.29 million at 31 December
  • the number of employments claimed for while the employee was working some of their usual hours has remained steady between when this was made possible on 1 July and October. At 31 October there were 977,200. This increased by 391,700 in November to 1.37 million at 30 November. Preliminary figures show that the number of employments furloughed continued to increase in December to 1.45 million at 31 December

Figure 7: Total employments furloughed by furlough type, 1 July to 31 December 2020

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Furloughing by employer size at 30 November and provisional figures for 31 December

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 furloughed.

The key points to note from tables 1a and 1b are, as at 30 November:

  • 37% of employers had staff furloughed at 30 November under CJRS and 13% of employments were furloughed
  • as at 30 November, employers with 20-49 employees were most likely to have claimed under CJRS to support the furloughing of staff, with 51% of employers of this size having at least 1 employee furloughed
  • employers with 250 or more employees had a total of 1.22 million employments furloughed at 30 November, the highest of all employer sizes. However, this represents just 7% 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 30 November– employer level

Employer size Employers furloughing staff Take-up rateǂ Value of claims made for periods from 1 November to 30 November (£ million)
1 174,800 24% 132
2 to 4 281,000 42% 441
5 to 9 116,000 48% 387
10 to 19 63,700 47% 362
20 to 49 44,900 51% 447
50 to 99 12,700 44% 210
100 to 249 7,700 45% 215
250+ 5,400 46% 934
Unknown 200 - 2
Total 707,100 37% 3,131

ǂ The take up rates are based on employers with employees eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Table 1b: CJRS claims by employer size as at 30 November – employment level

Employer size Employments furloughed Eligible employmentsǂ Take-up rateǂ
1 174,800 727,600 24%
2 to 4 552,900 1,682,900 33%
5 to 9 457,400 1,547,800 30%
10 to 19 428,100 1,792,700 24%
20 to 49 519,100 2,615,200 20%
50 to 99 250,100 1,977,600 13%
100 to 249 261,300 2,606,900 10%
250+ 1,224,100 17,402,300 7%
Unknown 300 - -
Total 3,868,200 30,353,200 13%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employers with employees eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

The key points to note from tables 1c and 1d are, as at 31 December (provisional figures):

  • 36% of employers had staff furloughed at 31 December under CJRS and 13% of employments were furloughed
  • employers with 250 or more employees had a total of 1.12 million employments furloughed at 31 December, the highest of all employer sizes. This was a decrease of 104,800 employments furloughed since 30 November.
  • the figures for the value of claims do not take account of voluntary repayments

Table 1c: CJRS claims by employer size as at 31 December (provisional)– employer level

Employer size Employers furloughing staff Take-up rateǂ Value of claims made for periods from 1 November to 31 December (£ million)
1 173,900 24% 265
2 to 4 276,900 41% 869
5 to 9 115,800 48% 765
10 to 19 63,500 47% 726
20 to 49 44,700 51% 902
50 to 99 12,400 43% 424
100 to 249 7,400 43% 411
250+ 5,300 45% 1,606
Unknown 200 - 3
Total 700,000 36% 5,970

ǂ The take up rates are based on employers with employees eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Table 1d: CJRS claims by employer size as at 31 December (provisional) – employment level

Employer size Employments furloughed Eligible employmentsǂ Take-up rateǂ
1 173,900 727,600 24%
2 to 4 539,800 1,682,900 32%
5 to 9 454,000 1,547,800 29%
10 to 19 438,500 1,792,700 24%
20 to 49 550,800 2,615,200 21%
50 to 99 269,000 1,977,600 14%
100 to 249 275,100 2,606,900 11%
250+ 1,119,300 17,402,300 6%
Unknown 4,100 - -
Total 3,824,400 30,353,200 13%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employers with employees eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Note: the number of employments furloughed in the unknown size category is not directly comparable with the number of employers in the equivalent category in table 1a.

Furloughing by sector at 30 November and provisional figures for 31 December

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, 2b, 2c and 2d, below.

Key points from tables 2a and 2b, as at 30 November:

  • the sector with the highest proportion of its workforce eligible for furlough that were actually furloughed was the accommodation and food services sector at 49% followed by arts, entertainment and recreation at 44%. In all, 65% of employers in the accommodation and food services sector and 61% of employers in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector were using the furlough scheme at the end of November
  • the accommodation and food services sector were responsible for the greatest total value of claims up to the end of November at £812 million. Wholesale and retail, and administration and support services were the two sectors with the next highest values of claims to date by the end of November, with £595 million and £267 million claimed respectively since the start of the extension to CJRS on 1 November

More details on this are available in the methodology section.

Table 2a: CJRS claims by sector as at 30 November 2020 – employer level

Sector Employers furloughing staff Take-up rateǂ Value of claims made for periods from 1 November to 30 November (£ million)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 4,500 13% 11
Mining and quarrying 200 24% 1
Manufacturing 42,100 42% 193
Energy production and supply 400 31% 2
Water supply, sewerage and waste 2,200 40% 10
Construction 75,600 33% 161
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles 113,500 47% 595
Transportation and storage 26,000 35% 169
Accommodation and food services 84,500 65% 812
Information and communication 36,700 24% 90
Finance and insurance 8,400 24% 23
Real estate 18,200 40% 47
Professional, scientific and technical 95,200 30% 204
Administrative and support services 64,400 39% 267
Public administration and defence; social security 300 4% 4
Education 15,500 40% 52
Health and social work 28,700 28% 82
Arts, entertainment and recreation 24,300 61% 220
Other service activities 54,600 59% 151
Households 1,700 2% 2
Unknown and other 10,100 - 33
Total 707,100 37% 3,131

ǂ The take up rates are based on employers with employees eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data and Inter-Departmental Business Register

Table 2b: CJRS claims by sector as at 30 November – employment level

Sector Employments furloughed Take-up rateǂ
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 15,000 8%
Mining and quarrying 1,300 2%
Manufacturing 219,400 9%
Energy production and supply 1,900 1%
Water supply, sewerage and waste 9,400 5%
Construction 169,700 13%
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles 739,400 16%
Transportation and storage 172,700 13%
Accommodation and food services 1,076,300 49%
Information and communication 97,000 8%
Finance and insurance 25,000 2%
Real estate 54,400 12%
Professional, scientific and technical 233,300 11%
Administrative and support services 311,400 11%
Public administration and defence; social security 7,400 1%
Education 77,300 2%
Health and social work 124,900 3%
Arts, entertainment and recreation 292,600 44%
Other service activities 199,900 35%
Households 2,300 2%
Unknown and other 37,600 -
Total 3,868,200 13%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employers with employees eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data and Inter-Departmental Business Register

Key points from tables 2c and 2d are, as at 31 December (provisional figures):

  • the sector with the highest proportion of its workforce eligible for furlough that were actually furloughed was the accommodation and food services sector at 47% followed by arts, entertainment and recreation at 41%. A 2 and 3 percentage points decrease respectively, when compared to 30 November.
  • the accommodation and food services sector were responsible for the greatest total value of claims up to the end of December at £1.53 billion. Wholesale and retail, and administration and support services were the two sectors with the next highest values of claims to date by the end of November, with £1.0 billion and £534 million claimed respectively since the start of the extension to CJRS on 1 November

Table 2c: CJRS claims by sector as at 31 December 2020 (provisional) – employer level

Sector Employers furloughing staff Take-up rateǂ Value of claims made for periods from 1 November to 31 December (£ million)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 4,600 13% 22
Mining and quarrying 300 25% 3
Manufacturing 42,100 42% 425
Energy production and supply 400 32% 5
Water supply, sewerage and waste 2,300 40% 21
Construction 79,300 34% 349
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles 110,100 45% 1,024
Transportation and storage 27,000 37% 325
Accommodation and food services 86,000 66% 1,531
Information and communication 36,800 24% 186
Finance and insurance 8,200 24% 48
Real estate 17,900 39% 95
Professional, scientific and technical 93,600 30% 417
Administrative and support services 64,400 39% 534
Public administration and defence; social security 300 3% 7
Education 14,900 38% 111
Health and social work 27,800 28% 160
Arts, entertainment and recreation 23,400 59% 389
Other service activities 48,700 53% 258
Households 1,700 2% 4
Unknown and other 10,400 - 57
Total 700,000 36% 5,970

ǂ The take up rates are based on employers with employees eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information data and Inter-Departmental Business Register

Table 2d: CJRS claims by sector as at 31 December (provisional) – employment level

Sector Employments furloughed Take-up rateǂ
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 15,300 8%
Mining and quarrying 1,500 3%
Manufacturing 270,200 11%
Energy production and supply 2,400 2%
Water supply, sewerage and waste 11,400 7%
Construction 193,400 15%
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles 689,500 15%
Transportation and storage 158,100 12%
Accommodation and food services 1,036,600 47%
Information and communication 101,100 8%
Finance and insurance 26,700 2%
Real estate 53,000 12%
Professional, scientific and technical 235,800 11%
Administrative and support services 312,000 11%
Public administration and defence; social security 6,500 0%
Education 86,200 3%
Health and social work 130,400 3%
Arts, entertainment and recreation 273,800 41%
Other service activities 182,900 32%
Households 2,200 2%
Unknown and other 35,300 -
Total 3,824,400 13%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employers with employees eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information data and Inter-Departmental Business Register

Furloughing by countries and regions at 30 November and provisional figures for 31 December, 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.

Figures 8 and 9 show the number of furloughed employments 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 30 November:

  • London and the South East accounted for 1.17 million of the furloughed employments
  • the East Midlands and West Midlands had a total of 560,300 employments furloughed under CJRS
  • Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 432,600 employments claimed for under CJRS
  • overall, where it was possible to link the data, across the UK, 1.92 million women were furloughed at the end of November compared with 1.79 million men
  • for 154,700 employments it has not been possible to link the furloughed employments to other HMRC data to determine the region of residence and gender of the furloughed employees
  • in most countries and regions more women than men were furloughed at 30 November, the exception to this being the London where 311,200 women were furloughed and 333,100 men

Figure 8: Employments furloughed as at 30 November, by Country and Region and gender

Region Female Male Total
London 311,200 333,100 644,400
South East 278,900 247,900 526,800
North West 207,300 198,000 405,300
East 186,700 161,200 347,800
West Midlands 159,300 149,400 308,800
South West 173,100 146,900 320,00
Yorkshire And The Humber 144,600 135,200 279,800
East Midlands 133,800 117,700 251,500
North East 67,400 57,600 125,100
Wales 63,800 61,200 125,000
Scotland 118,700 109,600 228,300
Northern Ireland 41,100 38,200 79,300

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

The key points from figure 9 are, as at 31 December:

  • the East Midlands and West Midlands had a total of 547,900 employments furloughed under CJRS, a decrease of 12,400 from 30 November.
  • Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 533,100 employments claimed for under CJRS. An increase of 100,500 from 30 November. The biggest increase coming in Scotland with 54,500 more employments furloughed
  • overall, where it was possible to link the data, across the UK, 1.88 million women were furloughed at the end of November compared with 1.85 million men. A decrease in the number of women and an increase in the number of men compared to 30 November
  • for 93,400 employments it has not been possible to link the furloughed employments to other HMRC data to determine the region of residence and gender of the furloughed employees
  • compared to 30 November, the number of regions were more women than men were furloughed had dropped with the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, London and the West Midlands having more men than women furloughed at 31 December

Figure 9: Employments furloughed as at 31 December (provisional), by Country and Region and gender

Region Female Male Total
London 309,000 332,200 641,200
South East 275,500 252,000 527,500
North West 188,000 193,700 381,700
East 182,200 165,200 347,400
West Midlands 148,000 150,600 298,600
South West 152,300 141,100 293,300
Yorkshire And The Humber 129,600 134,100 263,700
East Midlands 128,000 121,300 249,300
North East 64,200 60,100 124,300
Wales 78,700 76,800 155,500
Scotland 146,500 136,300 282,800
Northern Ireland 48,000 46,800 94,800

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Figures 10 and 11 show the take-up rate of employments furloughed within each country and region using CJRS with a gender breakdown.

The key points to note from figure 10 are, as at 30 November:

  • there was broad consistency in furlough rates across the nations and regions of the UK at the end of October. London had the highest take-up rate of 15% against the UK average of 13%
  • as shown in figure 10, the take up rate is similar for men and women within all regions and countries of the UK

Figure 10: Employment furlough take-up rate at 30 November, by Country and Region and gender

Region Female Male
London 14% 16%
South East 13% 12%
North West 12% 12%
East 13% 11%
West Midlands 12% 12%
South West 13% 12%
Yorkshire And The Humber 12% 11%
East Midlands 12% 11%
North East 12% 11%
Wales 10% 10%
Scotland 9% 9%
Northern Ireland 10% 10%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

The key points to note from figure 11 are, as at 31 December (provisional figures):

  • comparing figures from 30 November and 31 December, there was broad consistency in furlough rates across the nations and regions of UK. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were the biggest exception to this with a 2 percentage points increase at 31 December

Figure 11: Employment furlough take-up rate at 31 December (provisional), by Country and Region and gender

Region Female Male
London 14% 16%
South East 13% 12%
North West 11% 11%
East 12% 12%
West Midlands 11% 12%
South West 12% 11%
Yorkshire And The Humber 11% 11%
East Midlands 12% 11%
North East 11% 11%
Wales 12% 12%
Scotland 12% 11%
Northern Ireland 12% 12%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information data

The data for figures 8, 9, 10 and 11 can be accessed from the accompanying spreadsheet.

Furloughing by Local Authority and Parliamentary Constituency at 30 November and provisional figures for 31 December, including gender breakdown

Accompanying this release is a separate file providing counts of the number of furloughed employments by Local Authority and UK Parliamentary Constituency based on each employee’s residential address.

The accompanying spreadsheet additionally provides a gender breakdown that is shown in the maps in this section.

In figures 12 and 13 we present maps representing the take-up rates for employments furloughed for local authorities at 30 November and 31 December (provisional figures). Darker shades indicate a higher take-up rate.

The key points to note for local authorities, at 30 November, are:

  • at 22%, South Lakeland had the highest take-up rate. This was followed by Newham at 19%
  • The Shetland Islands had the lowest proportion of employments furloughed at 4%, followed by Aberdeenshire, Na h-Eileanan Siar and Moray at 6%
  • at 60,000, Birmingham had the highest number of employments furloughed. This was followed by Leeds with 43,100 employments furloughed. The take-up rates in these areas were 13% and 12%, respectively
  • in Scotland, Glasgow City had the highest number of employments furloughed at 34,200, a take-up rate of 13%
  • for Northern Ireland, Belfast had the highest number of employments furloughed at 16,000, a take-up rate of 11%
  • in Wales, Gwynedd had the highest take-up rate of 14%. Cardiff had the highest number of employments furloughed with 15,800

Figure 12: Employments furloughed as a proportion of eligible employments at 30 November, by Local Authority

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

The key points to note here for UK local authorities, at 31 December, are (provisional figures):

  • South Lakeland and Newham had the highest take-up rates at 19% and 20% respectively. A decrease of 2 percentage points for South Lakeland when compared to 30 November
  • the rate of furloughed employments was lowest in the Shetland Islands at 5%
  • although the number of furloughed employments decreased by 2,500 to 57,500 from 30 November, Birmingham remained the local authority with the highest number of employments furloughed. This was followed by Leeds with 40,700 employments furloughed. The take-up rates in these areas were 13% and 11%, respectively
  • in Scotland, Glasgow City had the highest number of employments furloughed at 37,000, a take-up rate of 14%
  • for Northern Ireland, Belfast had the highest number of employments furloughed at 18,400, a take-up rate of 13%
  • in Wales, Pembrokeshire had the highest take-up rate of 17%. Cardiff had the highest number of employments furloughed with 18,800, an increase of 3,000 when compared to 30 November

Figure 13: Employments furloughed as a proportion of eligible employments at 31 December, by Local Authority

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

In figures 14 and 15 we present maps representing provisional take-up rates for employments furloughed for UK Parliamentary Constituencies at 30 November and 31 December (provisional figures). Darker shades indicate a higher take-up rate.

The key points to note for UK Parliamentary Constituencies, at 30 November, are:

  • Westmorland and Lonsdale had the highest take-up rate at 23%, this was followed by Tottenham at 20%
  • the rate of furloughed employments was lowest in the Orkney and Shetland constituency at 5%
  • the West Ham constituency had the highest number of employments furloughed, with 18,200 employments furloughed
  • in Northern Ireland, the East Londonderry constituency had the highest take-up rate at 12%. Belfast North had the highest number of employments furloughed at 5,100
  • the Glasgow Central constituency had the highest take-up rate at 15%. Edinburgh North and Leith, and Glasgow had the highest number of employments furloughed in Scotland at 6,700
  • in Wales, Dwyfor Meirionnydd had the highest take-up rate at 18%. The Cardiff South and Penarth constituency had the highest number of employments furloughed at 5,500

Figure 14: Employments furloughed as a proportion of eligible employments at 30 November, by Parliamentary Constituency

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.) Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information data

The key points to note here for UK Parliamentary Constituencies, at 31 December, are (provisional figures):

  • Westmorland and Lonsdale had the highest take up rate at 21%
  • the rate of furloughed employments was lowest in the Orkney and Shetland constituency at 6%, an increase for this constituency of 1 percentage point
  • the West Ham constituency had the highest number of employments furloughed, with 18,000 employments furloughed
  • in Northern Ireland, the East Londonderry constituency had the highest take-up rate at 14%. The North Antrim and Upper Bann constituents had the highest number of employments furloughed at 6,000
  • the Glasgow Central constituency had the highest take-up rate in Scotland at 15%. Edinburgh North and Leith had the highest number of employments furloughed in Scotland at 7,900
  • in Wales, Dwyfor Meirionnydd had the highest take-up rate at 20%. The Cardiff South and Penarth constituency had the highest number of employments furloughed at 6,600

Figure 15: Employments furloughed as a proportion of eligible employments at 31 December (provisional), by Parliamentary Constituency

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Furloughing by age at 30 November and provisional figures for 31 December, including gender breakdown

This section of the release describes the number of employments furloughed as at 30 November by employees’ age and gender and provisional estimates as at 31 December. 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 16, as at 30 November, are:

  • the 25 to 34 age band continued to have the highest number of claimants for both females and males, 429,300 and 430,300 respectively
  • although the under 18 age band had the highest take up rate, the total number of employments furloughed was the second lowest of all age bands at 149,300

Figure 16: Employments furloughed as at 30 November, by age and gender of employee

Age band Female Male
Under 18 92,700 56,600
18 to 24 358,200 292,600
25 to 34 429,300 430,300
35 to 44 361,700 363,600
45 to 54 354,400 330,300
55 to 64 259,800 249,800
65 and over 64,100 70,300

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

The key points to note from figure 17, as at 31 December, are (provisional figures):

  • the 25 to 34 age band continued to have the highest number of claimants for both females and males. There was a decrease of 8,200 in the number of females in this age band when compared to 30 November, and an increase of 11,300 males

Figure 17: Employments furloughed as at 31 December (provisional), by age and gender of employee

Age band Female Male
Under 18 86,000 55,300
18 to 24 346,900 296,700
25 to 34 421,100 441,600
35 to 44 360,600 378,200
45 to 54 353,100 347,100
55 to 64 254,900 259,000
65 and over 60,900 69,400

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Figures 18 and 19 show the take-up rate of employments furloughed broken down by age and gender.

The key points to note from figure 18 are, as at 30 November:

  • the under 18 age band had the highest take up rate for both female and males, 41% and 30% respectively
  • the lowest take up rate was in the 45 to 54 age band, at 10% for both females and males

Figure 18: Employment furlough take-up rate at 30 November, by age and gender of the employee

Age band Female Male
Under 18 41% 30%
18 to 24 19% 17%
25 to 34 12% 12%
35 to 44 11% 11%
45 to 54 10% 10%
55 to 64 11% 11%
65 and over 13% 13%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

The key points to note from figure 19, as at 31 December (provisional figures):

  • at 34%, the take up rate for the under 18 age group had decrease by 2 percentage points from 30 November

Figure 19: Employment furlough take-up rate at 31 December (provisional), by age and gender of the employee

Age band Female Male
Under 18 38% 29%
18 to 24 19% 17%
25 to 34 12% 12%
35 to 44 11% 11%
45 to 54 10% 11%
55 to 64 11% 11%
65 and over 12% 13%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the original CJRS. The next release will provide figures based on the eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Full and partial furlough use by sector at 30 November and provisional figures for 31 December

The spreadsheet file accompanying this release presents analysis of the number of employments fully and partially furloughed by each employer’s industrial sector.

Figure 20 shows the number of employments fully and partially furloughed at 30 November by sector. The key points to note, as at 30 November:

  • 224,100 employers had at least one employment on partial furlough
  • 1.37 million employments were on partial furlough, 35% of the total employments furloughed
  • 2.36 million employments were fully furloughed, 61% of the total employments furloughed
  • missing information on some furloughed employments – for example incomplete or not fully processed spreadsheet-type returns for employers furloughing 100 or more staff – means that whether an employee has been partially furloughed is not known in 4% of cases
  • at 52%, manufacturing sector had the highest proportion of employments furloughed partially. The sector with the highest proportion of employments fully furloughed was energy production and supply at 79%

Figure 20: Employments fully and partially furloughed at 30 November, by sector

Sector Employments fully furloughed Employments partially furloughed Total
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 9,500 5,400 15,000
Mining and quarrying 900 400 1,300
Manufacturing 103,200 114,500 219,400
Energy production and supply 1,500 400 1,900
Water supply, sewerage and waste 5,900 3,400 9,400
Construction 120,000 49,400 169,700
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles 461,900 259,800 739,400
Transportation and storage 83,600 65,400 172,700
Accommodation and food services 614,500 381,400 1,076,300
Information and communication 63,900 31,900 97,000
Finance and insurance 15,800 8,900 25,000
Real estate 37,300 16,200 54,400
Professional, scientific and technical 149,100 83,300 233,300
Administrative and support services 206,500 98,500 311,400
Public administration and defence; social security 5,200 1,800 7,400
Education 45,200 31,500 77,300
Health and social work 72,400 50,700 124,900
Arts, entertainment and recreation 198,800 92,000 292,600
Other service activities 136,700 62,300 199,900
Households 1,400 800 2,300
Unknown and other 26,400 11,000 37,600

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Figure 21 shows the number of employments fully and partially furloughed at 30 November by sector. The key points to note, as at 31 December (provisional figures):

  • 238,300 employers had at least one employment on partial furlough, an increase of 14,200 when compared to 30 November
  • 1.45 million employments were on partial furlough, 38% of the total employments furloughed
  • at 634,400, the accommodation and food services sector had the highest number of employments fully furloughed, this sector also had the highest number of employments partially furloughed at 377,200

Figure 21: Employments fully and partially furloughed at 31 December (provisional), by sector

Sector Employments fully furloughed Employments partially furloughed Total
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 9,400 5,800 15,300
Mining and quarrying 900 600 1,500
Manufacturing 121,200 145,100 270,200
Energy production and supply 1,900 500 2,400
Water supply, sewerage and waste 6,800 4,600 11,400
Construction 134,700 57,900 193,400
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles 412,000 257,200 689,500
Transportation and storage 85,300 65,600 158,100
Accommodation and food services 634,400 377,200 1,036,600
Information and communication 66,500 34,000 101,100
Finance and insurance 17,000 9,500 26,700
Real estate 35,700 16,900 53,000
Professional, scientific and technical 145,900 88,500 235,800
Administrative and support services 193,100 113,600 312,000
Public administration and defence; social security 4,300 2,100 6,500
Education 47,700 37,600 86,200
Health and social work 70,300 56,900 130,400
Arts, entertainment and recreation 175,000 95,700 273,800
Other service activities 103,800 74,600 182,900
Households 1,400 800 2,200
Unknown and other 22,500 9,000 35,300

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Full and partial furlough use by Country and Region at 30 November and provisional figures for 31 December

Figure 22 and Figure 23 show the number of employments fully and partially furloughed by Country and Region.

The key points to note are, at 30 November:

  • at 49%, Wales had the highest proportion of employments partially furloughed
  • London had the highest proportion of employments fully furloughed at 67%
  • Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 189,900 employments partially furloughed
  • London had the highest number of employments partially furloughed at 209,400, followed by the South East at 201,500

Figure 22: Employments fully and partially furloughed at 30 November by Country and Region

Region Employments fully furloughed Employments partially furloughed Total
London 434,900 209,400 644,400
South East 325,300 201,500 526,800
North West 265,300 140,000 405,300
East 222,800 125,000 347,800
West Midlands 195,200 113,600 308,800
South West 194,000 126,000 320,000
Yorkshire And The Humber 179,100 100,800 279,800
East Midlands 160,400 91,000 251,500
North East 81,300 43,800 125,100
Wales 64,300 60,700 125,000
Scotland 126,700 101,700 228,300
Northern Ireland 58,800 27,800 79,300

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

The key points to note are, at 31 December:

  • at 47%, the South West had the highest proportion of employments partially furloughed
  • compared to 30 November, the South West had an 8 percentage points decrease in the proportion of employments fully furloughed
  • Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 221,100 employments partially furloughed, an increase of 31,200 from 30 November

Figure 23: Employments fully and partially furloughed at 31 December (provisional) by Country and Region

Region Employments fully furloughed Employments partially furloughed Total
London 412,500 228,700 641,200
South East 309,000 218,600 527,500
North West 239,900 141,800 381,700
East 204,600 142,800 347,400
West Midlands 188,100 110,500 298,600
South West 155,500 137,800 293,300
Yorkshire And The Humber 167,800 95,900 263,700
East Midlands 159,600 89,700 249,300
North East 85,200 39,200 124,300
Wales 88,600 66,900 155,500
Scotland 167,400 115,400 282,800
Northern Ireland 56,000 38,800 94,800

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Full and partial furlough use by Region and sector at 30 November and provisional figures for 31 December

Tables 16 and 17 in the accompanying spreadsheet show the number of employments furloughed by region and sector.

The key points to note are, at 30 November:

  • across all countries and regions, the accommodation and food services sector had the highest number of employments furloughed, this was followed by the wholesale and retail sector
  • In London, 27% of the employments furloughed were in the accommodation and food services sector
  • Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 131,300 employments furloughed in the accommodation and food services sector

The key points to note are, at 31 December:

  • the accommodation and food services sector continued to have the highest number of employments furloughed across all countries and regions
  • Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 101,700 employments furloughed in the wholesale and retail sector
  • 45% of the employments furloughed in the North East and North West were in the accommodation and food service, and wholesale and retail sectors

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 furloughed employee 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 furloughed 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 furloughed an employee 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 furloughed who have been absent from work and who had been paid Statutory Maternity Pay).

The CJRS scheme was extended from 1 November 2020. The rules for an employment to qualify to be covered by the extended scheme are set out in guidance. The two key rules are that the furloughed employee must have been employed on 30 October 2020, and the employer must have submitted a Real Time Information (RTI) submission to HMRC for the employee between 20 March 2020 and 30 October 2020, notifying a payment of earnings for that employee.

This may differ where you have made employees redundant, or they stopped working for you on or after 23 September 2020 and you have subsequently re-employed them.

Changes to the scheme from 1 July

From 1 July 2020, employers have the flexibility to bring furloughed employees 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 furloughed hours, 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. The £2,500 cap is proportional to the hours not worked.

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 14 January 2020 for support for the wages of furloughed staff up to 31 December 2020. The data for December is incomplete as claims relating to December may still be filed; thus, the figures for December should therefore be considered preliminary results and will be revised in future releases.

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 furloughed.

The numbers of jobs presented as ‘eligible employments’ and used to calculate take-up figures reflect the criteria for eligibility for the original CJRS scheme. They are 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.

The criteria for eligibility for the CJRS were amended for the CJRS extension. The figures for eligible employments in these statistics will be amended in a future release to reflect the changes.

The central qualifying criteria was that employees must have been employed on 30 October 2020 in order for employers to be able to claim support to furlough them. In addition, employees employed on 23 September under a fixed term contract that expired on or after 23 September could also be furloughed if re-employed.

When the eligible population figures are amended to reflect the CJRS extension criteria the take-up rates reported for the sectors most affected by the pandemic can be expected to increase slightly reflecting decreases in the number of people employed in those sectors.

Figures for the number of payrolled employees by sector can be found in the joint ONS/ HMRC statistics on Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (see related links section).

In this release employers are described as eligible to claim the CJRS if they employed staff for which the criteria to be eligible for furlough were met. Employers are grouped into size bands in some tables according to the number of employees they had who were eligible to be furloughed under the CJRS.

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 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 furloughed 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.

For this release a modest improvement has been made to the processing of data from the spreadsheet-type files submitted for claims relating to 100 or more employees. This makes fuller use of the data in identifying jobs to more effectively distinguish full and flexible furlough from November onwards. It results in a slight increase in the overall proportion of jobs reported as fully furloughed and mainly affects employers with 250 or more employees.

The geographic and flexible furlough breakdowns of employments include all employees that employers have furloughed where it has been possible to link claim data on furloughed employments 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 furloughed each day, using all claims submitted to HMRC by 14 January 2021.

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 furloughed staff may include staff furloughed for varying periods.

These factors combined with some incomplete data (as mentioned above) make counting the number of employees furloughed 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 furloughed employments.

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 14 January 2021 for support for the wages of furloughed staff up to 31 December. The data for December is incomplete as claims relating to December may still be filed; thus, the figures for December should therefore be considered preliminary results and will be revised in future releases.

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

In future iterations of this statistics release there may be some further revisions reflecting improvements to the data processing and methodology.

The figures in this release incorporate data on claims received by HMRC up to 14 January 2021 and cover employments furloughed up to 31 December 2020. The data for December is incomplete as late claims for the CJRS extension may still be filed with reasonable excuse and HMRC agreement. Amendments to December claims could also be made until 28 January.

Together it is expected that these factors will result in an increase in the level of furloughed jobs reported for December of about 1%. Thus, the figures for December should therefore be considered preliminary results and are likely to be revised slightly upwards in a future release.

Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: January 2020 - Employee and earnings statistics from PAYE Real Time Information.

Labour market in the regions of the UK: January 2020 - Regional breakdowns of changes in UK employment, unemployment and economic activity

Employment in the UK: January 2020 - Estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for the UK.

Average weekly earnings in Great Britain: January 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.