According to the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), half a million UK citizens may be laid off at the start of the autumn season. Despite a moderate recovery of the British economy, the country’s residents face serious risks of losing their jobs.
IES experts offer two possible scenarios of future events - basic and pessimistic. In the first case scenario, the number of redundancies is likely to exceed 445,000 in July-September 2020. Notably, this reading is much higher compared to the peak reached in the financial crisis in 2009, when 305,000 lay-offs were recorded. IES suggests that another 205,000 Britons will become unemployed in October-December 2020.
In the second case scenario, the pessimistic one, the level of job losses is likely to increase by nearly 690,000 in the third quarter 2020. However, analysts expect the number of redundancies to hit its peak - that is, 735,000 - in the August-October period.
IES experts emphasize that both scenarios do not consider the negative consequences of Brexit. Moreover, there is no guarantee that mass job cuts can boost unemployment. Interestingly, the United Kingdom did not see such a high rate of job losses even during the coronavirus lockdown.
