Temperatures are forecast to be capped at 35℃ in Abu Dhabi and Dubai
weather5 hours ago
Britain extended its job retention scheme -- the centrepiece of its attempts to cushion the coronavirus hit to the economy -- by four months on Tuesday but told employers they would have to help meet its huge cost from August.
Finance minister Rishi Sunak said 7.5 million temporarily laid off employees -- almost one in every four British workers -- were now on the scheme.
He said they could rest assured that they would continue to get 80 per cent of their wages -- up to 2,500 pounds (Dh11,281) a month -- until the end of October.
But Sunak said the scheme was expensive and could not continue indefinitely.
"We have stretched and strained to be as generous as possible to businesses and workers," he told parliament.
"This scheme is expensive. It is the right thing to do -- the cost of not acting would have been far higher -- but it is not something that can continue indefinitely into the future."
The programme is designed to stop an expected sharp rise in unemployment from turning into the kind of surge seen in the United States.
But at about 8 billion pounds (Dh36 billion) a month, its cost is around two-thirds of what Britain spends on public health services.
Sunak said that from August, employers currently using the scheme would be allowed to bring furloughed employees back part-time, something business groups had been calling for, to allow them to slowly get back up to speed.
But he also told companies they would have to start sharing the cost of the scheme from August.
The United Kingdom is racking up new debt at a furious pace: it is due to issue 180 billion pounds (Dh812 billion) of government debt between May and July, more than previously planned for the entire financial year.
Its debt mountain exceeds $2.5 trillion (Dh11.28 trillion) and its public sector net borrowing could reach 14 per cent of gross domestic product this year, the biggest single-year deficit since World War Two.
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