It was inevitable that the furlough scheme, which helped to protect the jobs and salaries of millions of people during the first months of the coronavirus outbreak, could not go on indefinitely.
And as the deadline of October 31 drew nearer, pressure was being put on the Government to say how it would continue to help companies and workers.
Now the Chancellor has unveiled a new scheme to provide a portion of the wages of people whose jobs are still viable - but there is not the same demand for them as there was pre-Covid.
A similar programme has been in place in other European countries since the start of the pandemic.
It means that employees who can only work on shorter hours will still be paid two-thirds of the hours for the time they cannot work. This offers at least a modicum of hope for those whose jobs are precarious.
But this will not help everyone and so it is important that those people who are facing redundancy get a similar level of help - in particular to increase their skills with retraining to make them more likely to find a new post.
Gillian Parkinson
Editor
