Lockdown restrictions are being relaxed across the UK, with England easing the quickest. Their main reason for doing this was to see if the economy would be able to support itself. Calculations show that the UK unemployment rate stayed unchanged, and the main reason for this was that the Government-assisted companies through tax and other schemes. The Government was hoping that people who were home this entire time would use this as an opportunity to leave their homes and visit restaurants and bars. They would in a way, spend their money and assist the economy through small businesses. From 4th July, hotels in many parts of the UK were open and so were London pubs making sure that people follow the rules laid out by the Government. They have to wear their masks, sanitise regularly, and maintain social distance as much as possible.
Although the employment rate stays unchanged, almost three-quarters of a million jobs were lost from company payrolls since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March, with the youngest and oldest workers bearing the brunt of the employment crisis. Most employees in the middle age segment, ideally holding white collared jobs are doing alright, with a few companies giving those jobs the axe as well.
The most popular of the schemes launched across the UK was the government’s emergency wage subsidy scheme. Through this scheme, they managed to protect about 8 million jobs from one million companies in the beginning days of the programme. The details of the program were that the government pays 80% of workers wages up to £2,500 per month, with the company paying the difference.
Some of the reasons for the unemployment rate remaining unchanged were that hardly any of the 126,000 who left employment signed on as unemployed. Unemployment implies that a person does not have a job and is looking to work, which was not the case for a majority of these people. Most of the people who lost their jobs were not looking to begin working any time soon and were waiting for the Coronavirus pandemic to get better. This left the unemployment rate at 3.9% for three months to May, staying unchanged from the previous quarter. The jobless picture is grim but statistically will get a lot grimmer, which was stated by Government ministers, normally hard-wired to find a silver lining in every situation. Unemployment is nudging three million, vacancies have plummeted and pay packets are shrinking. All this while the government is paying the wages of millions of workers through its furlough scheme.
With the entire jobs scenario changes this fast, companies are also making changes to the way that they function. One of the most significant changes is remote working. The largest section of the working population in the country are working from home or remotely. They coordinate with their office and clients through video and phone calls. Employers have started handling background checks for their employees to make sure they do not have criminal records or anything that could cause issues for their work.
There are two main checks that they handle, the basic one that is enough for most of the work that they handle is the basic CRB check. However, there are some jobs that need a detailed search and that is where they handle the enhanced DBS check.
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