UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has admitted that the British government will not be able to "save every job or every business - no Chancellor could," as he axed the government's furlough scheme, The Telegraph reports.
The new program, to begin on November 1, will provide government funding only to employees who work more than a third of their regular hours. Employers will pay regular wages for those hours, and a third of employee wages for hours not worked, with the government contributing another third and the worker the final third. As such, employees will receive 77% of their regular wages, as opposed to 80% under the furlough scheme, with the state contributing 22% of the full-time salary and employers paying 55% of wages for employees working 33% of the time.
Economists estimate that the changes could cost the country up to a million jobs, but Sunak insists that it would be "fundamentally wrong" for the state to prop up businesses that are only viable using taxpayer money.
"I can’t promise that everyone will be able to go back to the jobs they used to have," Sunak admitted.