Recessions, usually signify a rise in layoffs. Even the last recession, which was accompanied by much more wage moderation than previous ones, generated a significant rise in redundancies. This time it is a little different. Furloughing allows firms to postpone difficult decisions. This can be seen in Figure 1 below which tracks layoffs week by week through the first 26 weeks of 2020 relative to the norms of the past 5 years. While there may have been a small upturn in layoffs from around week 16, it is hard to discern a pattern to weekly layoffs that lies outside the norms of the last 5 years. And since the last 5 years were not recessions, it is hard to see much evidence of layoffs so far.

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4 September 2020

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The State of Working Britain

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http://stateofworkingbritain.blogspot.com/2020/09/uk-labour-market-under-covid-part-3.html

This Blog is published under the centre's Labour programme, Community Wellbeing programme.