Covid-19
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Labour market

Monday 29 June 2020

The full monty

Facing up to the scale of the COVID-19 jobs crisis

Britain is in the midst of a huge jobs crisis. The lockdown in late March trigged an unprecedented surge in benefit claims, 600,000 fewer employees are on payrolls, and a second unemployment wave will follow the imminent wind down of the Government’s Job Retention Scheme. But while the scale of this employment disaster is becoming clear, the nature of the crisis is less well understood. And that matters, as it holds the key to getting the next phase of the policy response right.

Which groups of workers, firms and sectors have been most affected by the crisis so far? Will unemployment come down as swiftly as it has surged? How does this crisis differ from previous recessions? And how should policy respond to what looks set to be the highest unemployment in a quarter of a century?

The Resolution Foundation is hosting an interactive webinar to debate and answer these questions. The Foundation will present highlights from a major new report into the nature of our jobs crisis and recommendations for how policy makers should respond, before we hear from leading experts on how to tackle high unemployment. Viewers will be able to submit questions to the panel before and during the event.

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