the treasury's furlough scheme which has
subsidized the wages of up to nine and a
half
million employees was due to end tonight
but it's now been extended across the uk
for another month
as our business correspondent katie
austin reports
this was the zimbra restaurant in
bournemouth in august
busy with eat out to help out diners
from thursday
it will alongside all other pubs and
restaurants in england
have to close for a month and once again
put staff on furlough
a lot of businesses didn't only just
came out of
this um you know this last lockdown
um a lot of businesses won't come out of
the second locker um
furlough will help employees it will not
stay businesses
then will need to be more grants vac
rates
the owner of this beauty salon in london
fears either demand for her services
will plummet again
or she'll have to close the furlough
will not be enough
yes it does help and i know it's
difficult but it won't be enough we do
need
money we do need to get assistance and
support we won't be able to do it
otherwise
we've got to pay i've got to pay rent
the british retail consortium said the
new england-wide restrictions amount to
a nightmare before christmas
it would be a disaster for us all as
customers in the lead-up to christmas
if part of the retail industry were
forced to close as
as part of today's announcement 1.6
billion pounds a week of retail sales
were lost
in april may and june and that would be
an even
bigger figure with the consequences for
jobs
the furlough scheme which was meant to
end today lives on for another month
but for hard hit sectors including
aviation and hospitality
a fresh lockdown of this length is the
nightmare scenario
and katie joins me now katie the
treasury has thrown
so much money at this already and now
this extension of furlough
that's right the cost to the public
purse continues
to mount as the government tries to
limit the damage caused by the
coronavirus restrictions
it is imposing the furlough scheme was
already coming in at a price tag around
40 billion pounds it's unclear exactly
what this one month extension will mean
in terms of cost but again we are likely
to be talking in the billions at a time
when government borrowing has soared
in november employees will receive 80 of
their current salary
for hours not worked up to a maximum of
two and a half
thousand pounds and this evening groups
representing self-employed people have
been
pointing to what had already been
announced for the self-employed which
was
winter grants which were going to cover
40
of their average trading profits if they
were eligible
so those groups are saying that needs to
be boosted too to help the self-employed
as well as employees
through this new period of lockdown
katie thank you very much our
correspondent katie austin there