Official Statistics

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme statistics: February 2021

Published 25 February 2021

Overview

This is the ninth release of Official Statistics on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). This release provides analysis of claims for periods up to 31 January 2021. The data used includes claims submitted to HMRC by 15 February 2021.

The data for January is not yet fully complete as while claims relating to January should have been filed by 15 February 2021, employers could file claims later with the agreement of HMRC if they had a reasonable excuse. Claims for January can also be amended until 1 March 2021. Together these factors are likely to have a small effect on the statistics: it is estimated that the number of claims reported for January could increase by around 3%. The January figures should therefore be considered as provisional and will be revised in a future release.

This release also presents the cumulative number of jobs furloughed since the start of the scheme in March 2020 up to 15 February 2021. It also includes figures for the cumulative number of PAYE schemes that have claimed under the Job Retention Scheme and the total amount claimed. This replaces the previously published management information figures.

We will continue to publish statistics on the Job Retention Scheme and the CJRS extension in future months. These statistics are Experimental Statistics and are subject to revisions. Further information is provided later in this publication.

The government announced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) on 20 March 2020. CJRS supports employers in paying their employees. Employers have been able to claim CJRS support for employees furloughed from 1 March 2020. Up to 30 June 2020, CJRS provided employers with financial support of up to 80% of their employees’ salaries. This support is capped at £2,500 per month per employee. Employers were also able to claim Employer National Insurance and minimum automatic enrolment pension contributions.

For the period 1 July 2020 to 31 October 2020, except in certain exceptional circumstances, staff who had not already been furloughed under the scheme could not be included in claims for support. Changes to the scheme from the start of August, September and October – as described later in this bulletin – gradually reduced the total level of support available for each furloughed employee up to the end of October.

An extension to the CJRS began on 1 November 2020 to provide further support to individuals and businesses impacted by disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19). At this time, it again became possible to claim support for furloughing jobs that had not been previously furloughed.

The figures for eligible employments in these statistics for periods from 1 November have been amended from those included in previous releases to reflect the updated eligibility criteria for the CJRS extension. More details on this can be found in the methodology section of this release.

See guidance on applying for support from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and further details.

Contact details

For queries or feedback on this publication, please contact:

• Claire Breeze

For press queries, please contact:

• Dan Allen, tel: 03000 585 024
• Lisa Billard, tel: 07773 091 264

Next release

The next release will be published on 25 March 2021.

Main points

The key points from this release covering the period to 31 January 2021 are below. Figures for January 2021 are provisional and subject to revision as additional claims for the period are received.

• following on from the last release which covered the period to 31 December, the data shows that furloughing of staff across all sectors increased up to 31 January, corresponding to the introduction of tighter restrictions on business opening that were introduced on 6 January
• the number of employments furloughed at 30 November was 3.9 million, this increased to 4.0 million at 31 December. Provisional estimates show a further increase in January to 4.7 million employments furloughed at 31 January
• cumulatively,11.2 million jobs have been supported by the CJRS since the start of the scheme
• the accommodation and food services sector had the highest take-up rate on 31 December at 65% of employers, provisional estimates show this increased to 68% of employers on 31 January. 1.12 million employments were furloughed in this sector on 31 December. Provisional estimates show the number of employments furloughed increased to 1.15 million on 31 January, the highest of all sectors
• furloughing of staff in the wholesale and retail sector peaked on 24 April at 1.85 million employments furloughed. This dropped to 356,400 employments furloughed at 31 October. The number of employments furloughed increased in November and December to 714,400 at 31 December. Provisional figures show that at 31 January, furloughing in this sector had increased to 938,500 employments furloughed
• at 30 November, 1.22 employments were furloughed by large employers with 250 or more employees. This increased to 1.24 million employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments furloughed by large employers increased to 1.49 million at 31 January
• across the UK, where it was possible to link the data, 1.92 million females were furloughed at 31 December compared with 1.88 million males. Provisional estimates show the number of females furloughed increased to 2.32 million at 31 January and the number of males increased to 2.18 million
• at 31 December, 36% of employers had staff furloughed. Provisional estimates show that this increased to 41% at 31 January. At 31 December 13% of employments eligible for furlough were furloughed, provisional estimates show this increased to 16% at 31 January
• there was broad consistency in furlough rates across the nations and regions of the UK at the end of December with London having the highest take-up rate of 16% against the UK average of 13%. Provisional estimates show that this was also true at the end of January with London having the highest take-up rate of 17% against and increased UK average of 16%
• at 31 December, the 18 to 24 age band had the highest number of claimants for both females and males, 357,000 and 294,000 respectively. Provisional estimates show that this was still true at 31 January with 409,700 females and 333,000 males furloughed
• the under 18 age band had the highest take up rate for both females and males at 31 December, 33% and 24% respectively. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that the under 18 age band continued to have the highest take-up rates at 39% for females and 29% for males
• 1.48 million employments were on partial furlough at 31 December, 37% of the total employments furloughed. Provisional estimates show this decreased to 1.33 million employments furloughed at 31 January, 28% of the total employments furloughed. This lower proportion of partial furloughing in January is consistent with greater restrictions on business activity in January.

About the data in this release

The data used in this release comprises the CJRS claims made up to 15 February 2021. Where possible, this data has been matched with other HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) data to enable additional analysis to be presented. As previously, this bulletin includes figures for the use of the CJRS as follows:

• the number of employments furloughed by day, also broken down by sector and employer size

• the number of employments furloughed by day, for July onwards broken down by:

  • country and region
  • gender
  • age
  • type of furlough (fully furloughed or flexibly (or partially) furloughed)

Updated and new tables:

• figures for the use of CJRS extension as at 31 December 2020 and provisional figures for the use of CJRS extension as at 31 January 2021, by the following categories:
  • employer size
  • sector
  • country and region, including a gender breakdown
  • local authority, including a gender breakdown
  • parliamentary constituency, including a gender breakdown
  • age, including a gender breakdown
  • region and sector

These statistics have been produced using data from both the CJRS and HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. They have been developed taking into account user feedback and requests. We would welcome any further feedback from users. This should be sent to CJRS.Statistics.Enquiries@hmrc.gov.uk. Responses will then be taken into consideration when developing future releases.

For these statistics, an ‘employer’ is defined as a PAYE scheme, and ‘employments’ are defined according to the CJRS criteria. Further details are within the background section.

An individual with employments with more than one employer is counted once for each employment furloughed.

As with previous releases, where we have been unable to match the CJRS claims with other HMRC data, we have denoted this as ‘unknown’ in the tables within this release.

This release reports a CJRS take-up rate for both employers and employments, where appropriate. The take-up rate has been calculated using PAYE RTI data, to estimate the eligible population of both employers and employments.

When the CJRS extension was introduced on 1 November 2020, it again became possible to claim support for furloughing jobs that had not been previously furloughed. The criteria for eligibility for the CJRS were amended for the CJRS extension.

For furloughing from November 2020 onwards, the numbers of jobs presented as ‘eligible employments’ and used to calculate take-up figures reflect the criteria for eligibility for the CJRS extension. They are based on a list of employees employed on 30 October 2020 and included in PAYE Real Time Information submissions for 20 March 2020 to 30 October 2020.

The figures for eligible employments in these statistics have been amended from previous releases to reflect the changes Previously figures for the numbers of employers and employments eligible were based on the criteria at the initial introduction of the CJRS.

The figures for January 2021 are based on claims received to the deadline of 15 February 2021. In some circumstances, late claims can be made with a reasonable excuse and in agreement with HMRC. Claims may also be amended until 01 March 2021. Therefore, the data for January 2021 is incomplete and should be considered to be provisional. It is estimated that the overall total number of employments furloughed in January will be in the region of 3% higher once all claims are submitted and revisions applied.

Except for the figures in the next section (titled: Cumulative claims and jobs furloughed since the start of the CJRS), the data in this release shows the total number of employments furloughed each day from March 2020 to January 2021. The first three releases of these statistics, published in June, July and August 2020, reported estimates of the total number of jobs that had been furloughed at any time over the March to June period, based on the latest data available at the time of those releases.

With the introduction of flexible furlough on 1 July, this statistical release series began reporting estimates of the number of jobs furloughed each day, with additional breakdowns for the last day in each month.

The data presented in this release comes from combining detail about furlough periods from the job level data supplied with larger claims (claims with 100 or more furloughed jobs) and the total number of furloughed staff included in each claim.

Rounding has been applied to the figures in the tables accompanying this release, with counts rounded to the nearest 100 and amounts to the nearest million.

Cumulative claims and jobs furloughed since the start of the CJRS

This section of the release presents the cumulative number of jobs furloughed since the start of the scheme in March 2020 up to 15 February 2021. It also includes figures for the cumulative number of PAYE schemes that have claimed under the Job Retention Scheme and the total amount claimed.

Similar figures were previously released weekly at the start of the scheme and then alongside these statistics on the main gov.uk page for HMRC COVID-19 statistics. The most recent figures published showed the position at midnight 13 December.

Table 1 shows that there have been 11.2 million unique jobs supported by the CJRS since its inception. This is a cumulative figure and covers all jobs furloughed at any time since the start of the scheme.

As described in detail in the methodology section of this release, the methodology used to calculate this figure has been improved and now uses job-level data rather than totals from claim forms submitted by employers. As a result, the figure is not directly comparable with the previously published management information figures.

This methodology change does not affect published figures on the number of jobs furloughed at the end of each month, or the more detailed statistics on the number of jobs furloughed each day.

The figures in table 1 are based on claims received up to 15 February 2021, the deadline for claims relating to January 2021. As well as claims made for January and earlier, these figures include claims for employments furloughed after January 2021 where the claim was received by 15 February 2021.

Table 1 also includes the total number of employer PAYE schemes that had claimed support up to 15 February 2021 and the value of claims submitted. All these figures together with the figures previously published as management information on the main HMRC COVID-19 statistics page can be found in table 1 of the spreadsheet that accompanies this release.

Table 1: Cumulative claims and jobs furloughed since the start of the CJRS

Date	Cumulative number of jobs furloughed (million)	Cumulative number of employers (million)	Cumulative amount claimed (£ billion)
At 15 February 2021	11.2	1.3	53.8

Source: HMRC CJRS data

Employments furloughed over time

This section of the release presents the number of employments furloughed each day from the scheme’s start up to 31 January 2021.

The chart in figure 1 shows the number of jobs furloughed under claims for support to the CJRS. Key points to note from figure 1 are:

• initially the number of employments furloughed increased quickly following the announcement of the scheme on 20 March, reaching 4.8 million on 23 March and 6.8 million by the end of March
• following further strong growth at the start of April, the number of employments furloughed increased gradually and peaked at 8.9 million on 8 May 2020. After the early May peak, the number of employments furloughed decreased slowly, before a fall of around 670,000 employments between the end of May and the start of June
• the number of employments that were furloughed then continued to reduce until the end of October, falling from 6.8 million at 30 June to 2.4 million at 31 October
• the number of employments furloughed increased on 1 November to 3.7 million, this figure continued to rise throughout November to 3.9 million on 30 November, corresponding to the introduction of the second national lockdown in England which was introduced on 5 November
• latest figures show that the number of employments furloughed continued to increase through December to 4.0 million at 31 December. Provisional estimates for January show an increase of around 800,000 employments furloughed on 1 January to 4.8 million followed by a slight decrease to 4.7 million employments furloughed at 31 January

Figure 1: Total employments furloughed, 23 March 2020 to 31 January 2021

Source: HMRC CJRS data

Employments furloughed over time by industry

This section breaks down the overall time series included above by the employer’s industrial sector. Figure 2 is a set of charts, one for each of 15 industrial sectors experiencing higher numbers of jobs furloughed. The underlying data for this figure and 6 other sector categories not shown in the chart can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.

The key points to note from figure 2 are:

• following on from the last release which covered the period to 31 December, the data shows that furloughing of staff across all sectors increased up to 31 January
• furloughing of staff in the wholesale and retail sector peaked on 24 April at 1.85 million employments furloughed. This dropped to 356,400 employments furloughed at 31 October. The number of employments furloughed increased in November and December to 714,400 at 31 December. Provisional figures show that at 31 January, furloughing in this sector had increased to 938,500 employments furloughed
• accommodation and food services peaked at 1.65 million employments furloughed on 10 April, this fell to 1.12 million employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional figures show that the number of employments furloughed increased through January to 1.15 million at 31 January
• the manufacturing sector had a peak of 911,000 employments furloughed on 17 April. This declined to 188,200 at 31 October. Through November and December, the number of employments furloughed increased to 274,500 at 31 December. Provisional estimates show that this figure had risen to 312,800 at 31 January
• in construction, furloughing peaked on 14 April with 723,600 employments furloughed, this fell to 169,700 at 30 November. This figure increased to 195,100 employments furloughed at 31 December and provisional estimates show that at the end of January the number of employments furloughed had risen further to 244,100
• furloughing in the arts and entertainment sector peaked later than other sectors on 15 May 2020 with 455,100 employments furloughed on that date. By 31 October this had dropped to 159,600 employments furloughed. Through November and December, this figure increased to 284,400 employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional figures show that this figure increased further to 315,100 employments furloughed at 31 January

Figure 2: Total employments furloughed by industry (millions) (largest 15 sectors), 23 March 2020 to 31 January 2021

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by employer size

In addition to the sectoral breakdown we also provide a breakdown of the number of employments furloughed per day by employer size. The employer size has been calculated based on an estimate of the number of employments eligible to be furloughed. We assume a PAYE scheme to be the equivalent of an employer.

Presented in figure 3 is a set of charts, one for each employer size band. The underlying data for these charts can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.

The key points to note from figure 3 are:

• across all employer sizes, the number of employments furloughed increased between 30 November and 31 January
• at 30 November, 1.22 employments were furloughed by large employers with 250 or more employees. This increased to 1.24 million employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments furloughed increased to 1.49 million at 31 January
• employers with 20 to 49 employments had 519,100 employments furloughed on 30 November. This figure increased to 559,800 employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments furloughed continued to increase to 652,000 at 31 January
• employers with one employment had 174,800 employments furloughed at 30 November. This decreased slightly by 2,800 to 172,000 employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional figures show that this figure dropped to 194,400 at 31 January

Figure 3: Total employments furloughed (millions) by employer size (number of employees), 23 March 2020 to 31 January 2021

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by country and region

This section provides a geographic breakdown of the number of employments furloughed each day from 1 July 2020 up to 31 January 2021. This is based on the residential address information that HMRC holds for employees. This does not directly translate to the employee’s usual place of work, or employer’s centre of operations which may be in a different region.

For example, an employee who lives in Wales and normally commutes daily to work in Bristol would be included within the count for Wales, rather than for South West England. At present these statistics are only available for 1 July onwards (see methodology section for more information). Figures for January should be considered to be provisional.

Presented in figure 4 is a set of charts, one for each region. The underlying data for these charts can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.

The key points to note from figure 4 are:

• across all English regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the number of employments furloughed increased from 30 November to 31 January
• 1.90 million employments were furloughed in England at 31 October. This figure increased through November to 3.21 million at 30 November before dropping to 3.19 million at 31 December. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments furlough increased in December to 3.77 million at 31 January
• in London – the English region with the most furloughed staff from July 2020 to January 2021, there were 644,400 employments furloughed at 30 November. This increased to 654,100 employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional estimates show a further increase in January to 712,200 employments furloughed at 31 January
• the number of employments furloughed in Scotland on 30 November was 228,300. This figure increased to 288,900 employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional figures show an increase in the number of employments furloughed to 362,300 at 31 January
• the number of employments furloughed in Wales was 125,000 at 30 November. This increased to 158,700 employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional estimates show the number of employments furloughed increased by 21,300 to 178,000 at 31 January
• on 30 November, the number of furloughed employments in Northern Ireland was 79,300. This increased to 96,500 employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional figures show that the number of employments furloughed continued to increase through January to 106,200 at 31 January

Figure 4: Total employments furloughed (millions) by country and region, 1 July 2020 to 31 January 2021

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by gender

This section provides analysis showing the number of employments furloughed each day from 1 July 2020 up to 31 January 2021, broken down by the claimants’ gender. The underlying data for figure 5 can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet. At present these statistics are only available for 1 July onwards (see the methodology section for more information).

The key points to note from figure 5 are:

• since 1 July, more employments have been furloughed with female job holders than where the employee was male
• for employments where the employee was female, there were 1.19 million employments furloughed at 31 October. This increased to 1.92 million employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional figures show that this number increased throughout January to 2.32 million at 31 January
• for employments where the employee was male, there were 1.14 million at 31 October. At 30 November this had increased to 1.79 million and continued to increase through December to 1.88 million employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional figures show that this increased to 2.18 million employments furloughed at 31 January

Figure 5: Total employments furloughed by gender, 1 July 2020 to 31 January 2021

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by age

This section provides analysis for the number of employments furloughed each day from 1 July 2020 up to 31 January 2021, broken down by age band. The claimant’s age is calculated at 1 March 2020 for employments furloughed up to 31 October, and at 1 November 2020 for employments furloughed from 1 November onwards.

Figure 6 is a set of charts, one for each age band. The underlying data for figure 6 can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet. At present these statistics are only available for 1 July onwards (see methodology section for more information).

The key points to note from figure 6 are:

• across all age bands the number of employments furloughed increased between 30 November and 31 January
• for employments where the employee was aged 25 to 34, the number of employments was 526,000 on 31 October, the highest across all age bands. This increased to 865,800 at 30 November and 887,900 at 31 December. Provisional figures show that this figure continued to rise to 1,029,200 at 31 January
• the number of employments furloughed with employees in the 18 to 24 age band was 325,300 on 31 October. This increased to 641,300 on 30 November and 651,000 on 31 December. At 31 January, provisional figures show that 742,700 employments were furloughed in the 18-24 age band
• where the employee was 65 or over, the number of employments furloughed was 111,900 at 31 October. At 30 November, the number of employments furloughed had risen to 156,200 before a small decline to 153,200 at 31 December. Provisional estimates show that the number of employments increased in January to 181,600 at 31 January

Figure 6: Total employments furloughed (millions) by age of employee, 1 July 2020 to 31 January 2021

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Employments furloughed over time by furlough type

This section provides a breakdown of the overall time series by employments furloughed fully and partially. On 1 July, the option was introduced for employers to furlough their employees for part of their usual hours, with the employee free to work the remainder. Therefore, the time series shown in figure 7 starts at 1 July.

The underlying data for figure 7 can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.

The key points to note in figure 7 are:

• the number of employments furloughed on a full-time basis decreased month on month from July to 31 October, where it stood at 1.36 million. The number of employments fully furloughed then increased through November to 2.36 million at 30 November before a slight decline to 2.33 million employments furloughed at 31 December. Provisional figures show that the number of employments fully furloughed increased to 3.18 million at 31 January
• the number of employments claimed for while the employee was working some of their usual hours has remained steady between when this was made possible on 1 July and October. At 31 October there were 977,200 employments flexibly furloughed. This increased to 1.37 million at 30 November and 1.48 million at 31 December. Provisional figures show that the number of employments flexibly furloughed decreased in January to 1.33 million at 31 January
• this means that a lower proportion of jobs were partially furloughed in January than in November and December, which is consistent with the greater restrictions on business activity in place during January.

Figure 7: Total employments furloughed by furlough type, 1 July 2020 to 31 January 2021

Source: HMRC CJRS data

Furloughing by employer size at 31 December and provisional figures for 31 January

Where it has been possible to match CJRS data to Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI), we have estimated the size of each employer in terms of number of employees potentially eligible for CJRS support.

When the CJRS extension was introduced on 1 November 2020, it again became possible to claim support for furloughing jobs that had not been previously furloughed. The figures for eligible employments in these statistics have been amended from previous releases to reflect the changes. More information can be found in the methodology section

For this data, we have assumed that PAYE scheme is the equivalent to an employer. For some employers, this is not an exact one-to-one equivalent. For example, some organisations operate multiple payrolls for different groups of employees and in other situations, a group of companies may pool their payrolls together under one PAYE scheme. However, in our view PAYE schemes provides a reasonable proxy for employers for the purposes of this release.

The employer size has been calculated based on an estimate of the number of employments eligible to be furloughed.

The key points to note from tables 2a and 2b are:

• at 31 December, 36% of employers had staff furloughed. Provisional estimates show that this increased to 41% at 31 January.
• as at 31 December, employers with 20-49 employees were most likely to have claimed under CJRS to support the furloughing of staff, with 52% of employers of this size having at least 1 employee furloughed. Provisional estimates show this was still true at 31 January with 61% of these employers having staff furloughed.
• the figures for the value of claims do not take account of voluntary repayments

Table 2a: CJRS claims by employer size as at 31 December 2020 – employer level

Employer size	Employers furloughing staff	Take-up rateǂ	Value of claims made for periods from 1 November 2020 to 31 December 2020 (£ million)
1	172,000	24%	262
2 to 4	279,000	40%	870
5 to 9	117,900	46%	773
10 to 19	64,700	46%	738
20 to 49	45,300	52%	912
50 to 99	12,600	44%	431
100 to 249	7,500	45%	422
250+	5,300	47%	1,700
Unknown	200	-	7
Total	704,300	36%	6,116

Table 2b: CJRS claims by employer size as at 31 January 2021 (provisional) – employer level

Employer size	Employers furloughing staff	Take-up rateǂ	Value of claims made for periods from 1 November 2020 to 31 January 2021 (£ million)
1	194,400	27%	414
2 to 4	312,800	45%	1,390
5 to 9	135,700	53%	1,257
10 to 19	74,600	53%	1,210
20 to 49	53,300	61%	1,505
50 to 99	15,500	55%	718
100 to 249	9,400	56%	707
250+	6,300	56%	2,848
Unknown	600	-	8
Total	802,700	41%	10,057

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the CJRS extension.

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

The key points to note from tables 2c and 2d are:

• 13% of employments eligible for furlough were furloughed at 31 December. Provisional estimates show this increased to 16% at 31 January.
• employers with 250 or more employees had a total of 1.24 million employments furloughed at 31 December, the highest of all employer sizes. Provisional estimates show this figure increased by 254,700 to 1.49 million at 31 January, the highest of employer sizes in both December and January

Table 2c: CJRS claims by employer size as at 31 December 2020 – employment level

Employer size	Employments furloughed	Eligible employmentsǂ	Take-up rateǂ
1	172,000	719,900	24%
2 to 4	539,600	1,735,400	31%
5 to 9	459,000	1,613,500	28%
10 to 19	446,900	1,823,700	25%
20 to 49	559,800	2,598,500	22%
50 to 99	274,400	1,920,900	14%
100 to 249	283,200	2,521,300	11%
250+	1,238,100	17,242,600	7%
Unknown	2,100	-	-
Total	3,975,100	30,175,900	13%

Table 2d: CJRS claims by employer size as at 31 January 2021 (provisional) – employment level

Employer size	Employments furloughed	Eligible employmentsǂ	Take-up rateǂ
1	194,400	719,900	27%
2 to 4	622,900	1,735,400	36%
5 to 9	540,500	1,613,500	33%
10 to 19	522,000	1,823,700	29%
20 to 49	652,000	2,598,500	25%
50 to 99	327,800	1,920,900	17%
100 to 249	343,900	2,521,300	14%
250+	1,492,800	17,242,600	9%
Unknown	7,400	-	-
Total	4,703,600	30,175,900	16%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the CJRS extension.

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Note: the number of employments furloughed in the unknown size category is not directly comparable with the number of employers in the equivalent category in tables 2a and 2c.

Furloughing by sector at 31 December and provisional figures for 31 January

This section presents analysis of CJRS claims according to the primary economic sector of employers’ activity. The take-up rate is also reported in this table for both employments and employers. This is presented in tables 3a, 3b, 3c and 3d, below.

Key points from tables 3a and 3b are:

• the accommodation and food services sector had the highest take-up rate at 31 December at 65% of employers and provisional estimates show this increased to 68% of employers at 31 January
• the arts, entertainment and recreation sector had the second highest take-up rate at 57%, increasing to 64% at 31 January
• at 110,700 the wholesale and retail sector had the largest number of employers furloughing staff. Provisional figures for January show that this continued to be true in January with 130,400 employers furloughing staff in this sector
• the education and other service activities sectors had the largest provisional increase in take-up rate between 31 December and 31 January at 11 percentage points
• at 31 January, the accommodation and food service sector had the highest value of claims at £2.52 billion

Table 3a: CJRS claims by sector as at 31 December 2020 – employer level

Sector	Employers furloughing staff	Take-up rateǂ	Value of claims made for periods from 1 November to 31 December (£ million)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	4,600	14%	22
Mining and quarrying	300	26%	3
Manufacturing	42,300	42%	432
Energy production and supply	400	29%	5
Water supply, sewerage and waste	2,300	39%	21
Construction	79,700	33%	353
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles	110,700	44%	1,057
Transportation and storage	27,100	35%	329
Accommodation and food services	86,400	65%	1,560
Information and communication	37,000	25%	187
Finance and insurance	8,300	24%	48
Real estate	18,000	38%	95
Professional, scientific and technical	94,100	31%	421
Administrative and support services	64,800	39%	546
Public administration and defence; social security	300	3%	7
Education	15,000	38%	115
Health and social work	28,000	28%	164
Arts, entertainment and recreation	23,500	57%	418
Other service activities	49,000	52%	263
Households	1,700	2%	4
Unknown and other	10,800	-	65
Total	704,300	36%	6,116

Table 3b: CJRS claims by sector as at 31 January 2021 (provisional) – employer level

Sector	Employers furloughing staff	Take-up rateǂ	Value of claims made for periods from 1 November 2020 to 31 January 2021 (£ million)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	5,800	17%	38
Mining and quarrying	300	30%	6
Manufacturing	49,200	49%	704
Energy production and supply	400	32%	9
Water supply, sewerage and waste	2,600	45%	35
Construction	94,000	39%	595
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles	130,400	52%	1,833
Transportation and storage	30,400	39%	525
Accommodation and food services	90,400	68%	2,520
Information and communication	39,100	27%	294
Finance and insurance	9,300	27%	77
Real estate	20,500	43%	154
Professional, scientific and technical	102,400	33%	662
Administrative and support services	71,900	43%	866
Public administration and defence; social security	300	4%	13
Education	19,200	49%	233
Health and social work	35,000	35%	286
Arts, entertainment and recreation	26,100	64%	652
Other service activities	59,200	63%	444
Households	2,600	3%	7
Unknown and other	13,600	-	103
Total	802,700	41%	10,057

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the CJRS extension.

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data and Inter-Departmental Business Register

Key points from tables 3c and 3d are:

• at 31 December, the sector with the highest proportion of its workforce eligible for furlough that were furloughed was the accommodation and food services sector at 55% followed by arts, entertainment and recreation at 49%
• take-up rates across all sectors increased when comparing figures for 31 December and provisional estimates for 31 January
• at 224,100, the wholesale and retail sector had the largest increase when comparing the number of employments furloughed at 31 December to provisional figures for 31 January

Table 3c: CJRS claims by sector as at 31 December 2020 – employment level

Sector	Employments furloughed	Take-up rateǂ
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	15,500	7%
Mining and quarrying	1,600	3%
Manufacturing	274,500	12%
Energy production and supply	2,500	2%
Water supply, sewerage and waste	11,500	7%
Construction	195,100	15%
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles	714,400	16%
Transportation and storage	159,400	12%
Accommodation and food services	1,115,700	55%
Information and communication	101,700	8%
Finance and insurance	27,400	3%
Real estate	53,900	12%
Professional, scientific and technical	238,100	11%
Administrative and support services	324,500	12%
Public administration and defence; social security	6,800	0%
Education	88,600	3%
Health and social work	132,400	3%
Arts, entertainment and recreation	284,400	49%
Other service activities	184,800	34%
Households	2,300	2%
Unknown and other	40,000	-
Total	3,975,100	13%

Table 3d: CJRS claims by sector as at 31 January 2021 – employment level

Sector	Employments furloughed	Take-up rateǂ
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	21,200	10%
Mining and quarrying	2,100	4%
Manufacturing	312,800	13%
Energy production and supply	3,000	2%
Water supply, sewerage and waste	14,200	8%
Construction	244,100	19%
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles	938,500	21%
Transportation and storage	187,600	14%
Accommodation and food services	1,147,200	56%
Information and communication	110,500	9%
Finance and insurance	31,400	3%
Real estate	64,900	15%
Professional, scientific and technical	270,600	12%
Administrative and support services	387,000	14%
Public administration and defence; social security	9,500	1%
Education	188,200	6%
Health and social work	183,000	4%
Arts, entertainment and recreation	315,100	55%
Other service activities	222,600	41%
Households	3,400	3%
Unknown and other	46,600	-
Total	4,703,600	16%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the CJRS extension.

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data and Inter-Departmental Business Register

Furloughing by countries and regions at 31 December and provisional figures for 31 January, including gender breakdown

We also provide a geographic breakdown of CJRS claims based on the residential address information that HMRC holds for employees. This does not directly translate to the employee’s usual place of work, or employer’s centre of operations which may be in a different region. For example, an employee who lives in Wales and normally commutes daily to work in Bristol would be included within the count for Wales, rather than for South West England.

Figures 8a and 8b show the number of furloughed employments by each of the English regions, and the totals for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. For some employments it has not been possible so far to link the employment to the employees’ area of residence and these are included in the unknown category.

The key points from figures 8a and 8b are:

• London and the South East accounted for 1.19 million of the furloughed employments at 31 December. Provisional estimates show this increased to 1.35 million at 31 January
• the East Midlands and West Midlands had a total of 556,700 employments furloughed at 31 December, increasing to 665,200 at 31 January
• at 31 December, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 544,100 employments claimed for under CJRS. Provisional estimates for 31 January show an increase of 102,400 to 646,500 employments furloughed
• overall, where it was possible to link the data, across the UK, 1.92 million females were furloughed at 31 December compared with 1.88 million males. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that these figures increased to 2.32 million females furloughed and 2.18 million males

Figure 8a: Employments furloughed as at 31 December 2020, by country and region and gender

Region	Female	Male	Total
London	315,800	338,400	654,100
South East	281,100	257,400	538,500
North West	192,100	198,100	390,100
East	186,000	168,900	354,900
West Midlands	150,300	153,100	303,400
South West	154,500	143,600	298,000
Yorkshire And The Humber	131,400	136,100	267,500
East Midlands	129,900	123,400	253,300
North East	65,300	61,000	126,300
Wales	80,200	78,500	158,700
Scotland	149,800	139,100	288,900
Northern Ireland	49,100	47,400	96,500

Figure 8b: Employments furloughed as at 31 January 2021 (provisional), by country and region and gender

Region	Female	Male	Total
London	350,600	361,600	712,200
South East	335,900	297,300	633,200
North West	239,900	235,200	475,100
East	224,200	195,400	419,600
West Midlands	188,400	178,000	366,400
South West	206,200	180,600	386,800
Yorkshire And The Humber	168,000	159,400	327,400
East Midlands	156,800	142,000	298,800
North East	78,100	72,100	150,200
Wales	92,500	85,400	178,000
Scotland	186,900	175,400	362,300
Northern Ireland	54,300	51,900	106,200

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Figures 9a and 9b show the take-up rates of employments furloughed within each country and region using CJRS with a gender breakdown.

The key points to note from figures 9a and 9b are:

• there was broad consistency in furlough rates across the nations and regions of the UK at the end of December with London having the highest take-up rate of 16% against the UK average of 13%. Provisional estimates show that this was also true at the end of January with London having the highest take-up rate at 17% against an increased UK average of 16%
• as shown in figures 9a and 9b, the take up rate is similar for males and females within all regions and countries of the UK at 31 December and 31 January

Figure 9a: Employment furlough take-up rate at 31 December 2020, by country and region and gender

Region	Female	Male
London	15%	17%
South East	13%	12%
North West	12%	12%
East	13%	12%
West Midlands	12%	12%
South West	12%	12%
Yorkshire And The Humber	11%	11%
East Midlands	12%	11%
North East	12%	11%
Wales	12%	12%
Scotland	12%	12%
Northern Ireland	12%	13%

Figure 9b: Employment furlough take-up rate at 31 January 2021 (provisional), by country and region and gender

Region	Female	Male
London	17%	18%
South East	16%	14%
North West	15%	15%
East	16%	14%
West Midlands	15%	14%
South West	16%	15%
Yorkshire And The Humber	14%	13%
East Midlands	14%	13%
North East	14%	13%
Wales	14%	13%
Scotland	15%	15%
Northern Ireland	13%	14%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the CJRS extension.

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

The data for figures 8a, 8b, 9a and 9b can be accessed from the accompanying spreadsheet.

Furloughing by Local Authority and Parliamentary Constituency at 31 December and provisional figures for 31 January, including gender breakdown

Accompanying this release is a separate file providing counts of the number of furloughed employments by Local Authority and UK Parliamentary Constituency based on each employee’s residential address.

The accompanying tables additionally provide a gender breakdown that is not shown in the maps in this section.

In figures 10a and 10b we present maps representing the take-up rates for employments furloughed for local authorities at 31 December and 31 January (provisional figures). Darker shades indicate a higher take-up rate.

The key points to note for local authorities are:

• on 31 December, Newham had the highest take-up rate at 21%. This was followed by Haringey and South Lakeland at 20%. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that South Lakeland had the highest take-up rate at 26% followed by Eden at 23%
• on 31 December the Shetland Islands had the lowest proportion of employments furloughed at 5%. Provisional estimates show that Boston, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands had the lowest take-up rates at 9% at 31 January
• Birmingham had the highest number of employments furloughed on 31 December at 58,600, a take-up rate of 13%. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that Birmingham continued to have the highest number of employments furloughed at 68,200, a take-up rate of 16%
• in Scotland, South Ayrshire had the highest take-up rate on 31 December at 15%. At 31 January, provisional estimates show that Perth and Kinross, and Highland had the highest take-up rates at 18%
• for Northern Ireland, Causeway Coast and Glens, and Newry, Mourne and Down had the highest take-up rates at 14%. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that Newry, Mourne and Down had the highest take-up rate at 16%
• in Wales, Conwy and Pembrokeshire had the highest take-up rates at 17% on 31 December. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that Conwy had the highest take-up rate at 19%

Figure 10a: Employments furloughed as a proportion of eligible employments at 31 December 2020, by Local Authority

Figure 10b: Employments furloughed as a proportion of eligible employments at 31 January 2021, by Local Authority

ǂ These maps are based on the number of employments eligible for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

In figures 11a and 11b we present maps representing provisional take-up rates for employments furloughed for UK Parliamentary Constituencies at 31 December and 31 January (provisional figures). Darker shades indicate a higher take-up rate.

The key points to note for UK Parliamentary Constituencies are:

• at 31 December, Westmorland and Lonsdale and Tottenham had the highest take-up rates at 22%. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that Westmorland and Lonsdale had the highest take-up rate at 28%
• at 31 December, the rate of furloughed employments was lowest in Orkney and Shetland constituency at 7%. Provisional estimates show this was still the case at 31 January with Orkney and Shetland having a take-up rate of 9%
• the West Ham constituency had the highest number of employments furloughed at 31 December, with 18,400 employments furloughed. This was true in January also with provisional estimates show West Ham had 19,500 employments furloughed
• in Northern Ireland, the Belfast North, Belfast West and East Londonderry constituencies had the highest take-up rates at 14%. At 16%, provisional figures show that East Londonderry had the highest take-up rate on 31 January
• in Scotland, the Glasgow Central constituency had the highest take-up rate at 17% on 31 December. Provisional figures show that Ross, Skye and Lochaber, and Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey constituencies had the highest take-up rates on 31 January at 19%
• in Wales, Aberconwy and Dwyfor Meirionnydd had the highest take-up rates at 20%. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that Dwyfor Meirionnydd had the highest take-up rate at 22%

Figure 11a: Employments furloughed as a proportion of eligible employments at 31 December 2020, by Parliamentary Constituency

Figure 11b: Employments furloughed as a proportion of eligible employments at 31 January 2021, by Parliamentary Constituency

ǂ These maps are based on the number of employments eligible for the CJRS extension. (See methodology section for more information.)

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Furloughing by age at 31 December 2020 and provisional figures for 31 January 2021, including gender breakdown

This section of the release describes the number of employments furloughed as at 31 December by employees’ age and gender and provisional estimates as at 31 January. This breakdown is based on the most up-to-date demographic information that HMRC holds on the individuals for whom claims have been made. The age of employees is calculated as at 1 November 2020.

The key points to note from figures 12a and 12b are:

• at 31 December the 18 to 24 age band had the highest number of claimants for both females and males, 357,000 and 294,000 respectively. Provisional estimates show that this was still true at 31 January with 409,700 females furloughed and 333,000 males
• figures for 31 December and provisional estimates for 31 January show that the under 18 age group had the lowest number of employments furloughed across both months, 94,300 employments at 31 December and 112,500 employments furloughed at 31 January

Figure 12a: Employments furloughed as at 31 December 2020, by age and gender of employee

Age band	Female	Male
Under 18	58,200	36,000
18 to 24	357,000	294,000
25 to 29	222,400	230,300
30 to 34	211,300	223,900
35 to 39	195,500	205,200
40 to 44	175,700	185,700
45 to 49	174,800	176,200
50 to 54	182,000	176,100
55 to 59	159,800	157,700
60 to 64	111,500	116,300
65 and over	71,700	81,500

Figure 12b: Employments furloughed as at 31 January 2021 (provisional), by age and gender of employee

Age band	Female	Male
Under 18	69,300	43,200
18 to 24	409,700	333,000
25 to 29	260,000	259,800
30 to 34	254,100	255,400
35 to 39	239,600	236,900
40 to 44	218,000	214,900
45 to 49	217,600	205,100
50 to 54	227,700	206,500
55 to 59	200,900	186,500
60 to 64	139,500	139,300
65 and over	85,700	96,000

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Figures 13a and 13b show the take-up rate of employments furloughed broken down by age and gender.

The key points to note from figures 13a and 13b are:

• the under 18 age band had the highest take up rate for both female and males at 31 December, 33% and 24% respectively. Provisional estimates for 31 January show that the under 18 age band continued to have the highest take-up rates at 39% for females and 29% for males
• provisional estimates for 31 January show that take-up rates increased across all age bands from 31 December

Figure 13a: Employment furlough take-up rate at 31 December 2020, by age and gender of the employee

Age band	Female	Male
Under 18	33%	24%
18 to 24	20%	17%
25 to 29	13%	13%
30 to 34	12%	12%
35 to 39	12%	12%
40 to 44	11%	11%
45 to 49	11%	11%
50 to 54	10%	11%
55 to 59	11%	11%
60 to 64	12%	12%
65 and over	14%	15%

Figure 13b: Employment furlough take-up rate at 31 January 2021 (provisional), by age and gender of the employee

Age band	Female	Male
Under 18	39%	29%
18 to 24	23%	19%
25 to 29	15%	15%
30 to 34	14%	14%
35 to 39	14%	14%
40 to 44	14%	13%
45 to 49	13%	13%
50 to 54	13%	13%
55 to 59	13%	13%
60 to 64	15%	15%
65 and over	17%	17%

ǂ The take up rates are based on employments eligible for the CJRS extension.

Source: HMRC CJRS and PAYE Real Time Information data

Full and partial furlough use by sector at 31 December and provisional figures for 31 January

The spreadsheet file accompanying this release presents analysis of the number of employments fully and partially furloughed by each employer’s industrial sector.

Table 15 in the accompanying spreadsheet provides the number of employments fully and partially furloughed at 31 December and provisional estimates at 31 January. The key points to note are:

• 239,800 employers had at least one employment on partial furlough at 31 December. Provisional estimates for 31 January show this figure increased to 241,900
• 1.48 million employments were on partial furlough at 31 December, 37% of the total employments furloughed. Provisional estimates show this figure decreased to 1.33 million employments furloughed at 31 January, 28% of the total employments furloughed
• 2.33 million employments were fully furloughed at 31 December, 59% of the total employments furloughed. Provisional estimates for 31 January show this figure increased to 3.18 million, 68% of the total employments furloughed
• at 53%, the manufacturing sector had the highest proportion of employments furloughed partially on 31 December. The sector with the highest proportion of employments fully furloughed was energy production and supply, at 80%. Provisional estimates show these sectors still had the highest proportions fully and partially furloughed at 31 January
• missing information on some furloughed employments – for example incomplete or not fully processed spreadsheet-type returns for employers furloughing 100 or more staff – means that whether an employee has been partially furloughed is not known in 4% of cases

Figure 14: Employments fully and partially furloughed at 31 January (provisional), by sector

Sector	Employments fully furloughed	Employments partially furloughed	Total
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	13,600	6,900	21,200
Mining and quarrying	1,400	800	2,100
Manufacturing	148,700	155,300	312,800
Energy production and supply	2,400	500	3,000
Water supply, sewerage and waste	8,100	5,900	14,200
Construction	165,900	74,900	244,100
Wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles	618,200	277,900	938,500
Transportation and storage	110,600	71,800	187,600
Accommodation and food services	889,700	214,400	1,147,200
Information and communication	73,700	35,600	110,500
Finance and insurance	19,800	11,300	31,400
Real estate	44,000	20,000	64,900
Professional, scientific and technical	170,500	95,900	270,600
Administrative and support services	254,700	112,400	387,000
Public administration and defence; social security	7,100	2,300	9,500
Education	112,700	68,600	188,200
Health and social work	105,400	71,300	183,000
Arts, entertainment and recreation	222,000	61,700	315,100
Other service activities	175,500	40,000	222,600
Households	2,500	800	3,400
Unknown and other	33,700	6,800	46,600

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Full and partial furlough use by country and region at 31 December and provisional figures for 31 January

Table 16 in the accompanying spreadsheet details the number of employments fully and partially furloughed by country and region at 31 December and provisional estimates at 31 January.

The key points to note are:

• at 31 December, the South West had the highest proportion of employments partially furloughed at 47%. Although provisional estimates show this fell to 34% at 31 January, this was still the highest proportion of employments partially furloughed
• the North East had the highest proportion of employments fully furloughed on 31 December at 68%. Provisional estimates show that London had the highest proportion of employments fully furloughed on 31 January at 75%
• Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 225,300 employments partially furloughed at 31 December. Provisional estimates show this fell to 191,000 at 31 January
• London had the highest number of employments partially furloughed at 233,600 on 31 December, provisional estimates for 31 January show that the South East had the highest number of employments partially furloughed at 196,800

Figure 15: Employments fully and partially furloughed at 31 January 2021 (provisional) by country and region

Region	Employments fully furloughed	Employments partially furloughed	Total
London	534,700	177,500	712,200
South East	436,400	196,800	633,200
North West	336,300	138,800	475,100
East	293,500	126,100	419,600
West Midlands	254,300	112,100	366,400
South West	256,000	130,900	386,800
Yorkshire And The Humber	223,600	103,800	327,400
East Midlands	205,200	93,600	298,800
North East	109,500	40,700	150,200
Wales	127,500	50,400	178,000
Scotland	253,700	108,600	362,300
Northern Ireland	74,200	32,000	106,200

Source: HMRC CJRS data and PAYE Real Time Information

Full and partial furlough use by Region and sector at 31 December and provisional figures for 31 January

Tables 17 and 18 in the accompanying spreadsheet show the number of employments furloughed by region and sector at 31 December and provisional estimates at 31 January.

The key points to note are:

• at 31 December, across all countries and regions, the accommodation and food services sector had the highest number of employments furloughed, this was followed by the wholesale and retail sector. Provisional estimates for 31 January show this was still true in all countries and regions bar Northern Ireland where the wholesale and retail sector overtook the accommodation and food services sector
• in London, 27% of the employments furloughed were in the accommodation and food services sector on 31 December. Provisional estimates show this decreased to 26% at 31 January
• Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined had 152,500 employments furloughed in the accommodation and food services sector at 31 December. Provisional estimates show this increased to 161,900 at 31 January

Background

The government introduced the Coronavirus Job Retentions Scheme (CJRS) to support employers through the COVID-19 period, this has commonly been referred to as the furlough scheme. It works by providing grants to employers of up to a maximum 80% of salary to a maximum value of £2,500 per employee (until the end of August). Up to the end of July, the scheme also met some of the cost of employer pension contributions and the employer National Insurance Contributions.

The scheme is based around HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system. For an employer to qualify for the scheme they need to have created a PAYE scheme by 19 March 2020. In these statistics, an employer is defined as a PAYE scheme.

The rules for an employment to qualify to be covered by the scheme are set out in guidance, and two of the key rules are that the furloughed employee must have been employed on 19 March 2020 and the employer must have submitted a Real Time Information (RTI) submission to HMRC for the employee by this date. Further information on the qualifying criteria is available online.

The scheme closed to new entrants from 30 June 2020. After this date, employers have only been able to furlough employees they furloughed for a full three-week period prior to 30 June 2020.

As a consequence of the closure of the scheme to additional employees and the minimum three-week furlough period that applied until the end of June, the final date that an employer could have furloughed an employee for the first time was 10 June 2020.

Employers had until 31 July 2020 to make any claims in respect of the period to 30 June 2020. A small number of claims have been made since this date. These claims relate to exceptions as set out in the CJRS guidance (for example, for employees being furloughed who have been absent from work and who had been paid Statutory Maternity Pay).

The CJRS scheme was extended from 1 November 2020. The rules for an employment to qualify to be covered by the extended scheme are set out in guidance. The two key rules are that the furloughed employee must have been employed on 30 October 2020, and the employer must have submitted a Real Time Information (RTI) submission to HMRC for the employee between 20 March 2020 and 30 October 2020, notifying a payment of earnings for that employee.

This may differ where they have made employees redundant, or they stopped working for the employer on or after 23 September 2020 and have subsequently been re-employed.

Changes to the scheme from 1 July 2020

From 1 July 2020, employers have the flexibility to bring furloughed employees back to work part time. Additionally, employers have the flexibility to decide the hours and shift patterns of their employees – with the government continuing to pay 80% of salaries for the hours they do not work.

From 1 September 2020, the scheme supported 70% of salaries for hours not worked, reducing to 60% from 1 October 2020.

When claiming the CJRS grant for furloughed hours, employers need to report and claim for a minimum period of a week. Employers had until 30 November 2020 to submit claims for support from the CJRS.

Changes to the scheme from 1 November 2020

An extension of the CJRS scheme began on 1 November 2020 to further support individuals and businesses who are impacted by disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19). The CJRS extension will remain open until 30 April 2021. For claim periods from 1 November to 30 April 2021, employers with a PAYE scheme will be able to claim 80% of an employee’s usual hours worked, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month. The £2,500 cap is proportional to the hours not worked.

See guidance on applying for support from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and further details.

Glossary

An employer is defined within this release as a Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Scheme. In some circumstances this does not map directly to what is commonly understood to be an employer. For example, some organisations operate multiple payrolls, and in other situations, a group of companies may pool their payrolls together under one PAYE scheme. However, in our view PAYE schemes provides a reasonable proxy for employers for the purposes of this release.

An employment is defined within this release as anyone who meets the scheme criteria set out within the published guidance. We have applied this definition in order to keep the presentation simple and the difficulty in separating out Office Holders (such as directors) from what are generally considered employees. Further information on the eligibility criteria is set out in the background section above.

Measuring the data

Data source and collection

The data for this release comes from HM Revenue and Customs’ CJRS claims. It covers the whole population rather than a sample of people or companies, and it will allow for more detailed estimates of the population.

The release is classed as Experimental Statistics as the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase. As a result, the series are subject to revisions. Information about what the term Experimental Statistics means is published by the Office for National Statistics.

Additional data from HMRC’s Real Time Information system has been matched with CJRS data in order to produce the statistics released here.

Coverage

This publication covers all CJRS claims made by employers from the start of the scheme up to 15 February 2021 for support for the wages of furloughed staff up to 31 January 2021. The data for January is incomplete as claims relating to January may still be filed; thus, the figures for January should therefore be considered provisional results and will be revised in future releases.

Methodology (except table 1)

This section provides notes on the methodology and implications for interpreting the figures.

The statistics in this release count employments. Therefore (for example), an employee with jobs at two employers will be counted twice if both jobs are furloughed.

The numbers of jobs presented as ‘eligible employments’ and used to calculate take-up figures reflect the criteria for eligibility for the extension to the CJRS scheme. They are based on a list of employees employed on 30 October 2020 and included in PAYE Real Time Information submissions for 20 March 2020 to 30 October 2020. Only employments in RTI submissions received by HMRC by 30 October are counted.

Following the criteria for qualifying for the scheme, this is supplemented by a list of people who were employed on 23 September 2020 but who left their job before 30 October and who were later re-employed by the same employer.

The criteria for eligibility for the CJRS were amended for the CJRS extension. The figures for eligible employments in these statistics have been amended from previous releases to reflect the changes.

In this release employers are described as eligible to claim the CJRS if they employed staff for which the criteria to be eligible for furlough were met. Employers are grouped into size bands in some tables according to the number of employees they had who were eligible to be furloughed under the extension to CJRS.

In some circumstances HMRC holds incomplete information about employments, for example where a leaving date had not been submitted by employer. In this situation, an estimate of the probability that an individual was employed on the qualifying dates has been used.

The assessment of whether a person was employed on the qualifying dates is based on the methodology used for the joint HMRC/ONS statistics release, Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information

Employers making claims for 100 or more employees at a time are required to submit the details of the employees furloughed in a spreadsheet-type file. While these claims have been processed from a customer service perspective, the processing of this information for these statistics has been complex and the processing of data on some employments has not been completed. This is a factor behind the unknown category in the tables.

The completeness of this data has gradually improved since the first release, and we expect some further (smaller) improvements.

The geographic and flexible furlough breakdowns of employments include all employees that employers have furloughed where it has been possible to link claim data on furloughed employments to classifying information (such as the employee’s gender and address). The linking has been performed using employees’ National Insurance numbers to data held within HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. When the employer-submitted National Insurance numbers are not of sufficient quality to be matched with other HMRC data, the employments have been categorised as ‘unknown’.

The geographic breakdowns in the tables and maps use a postcode lookup file from Office for National Statistics (ONS) data to link UK postcodes to geographic areas.

Industrial sector information is based on the Interdepartmental Business Register (IDBR) produced by the ONS. Where PAYE schemes are absent from the IDBR, we have used sector information from Companies House, linking on employer name where possible. This provides Standard Industrial Classification codes (UK SIC 2007) for employers that have made a claim. Where we have been unable to determine SIC codes, we have reported the sector as ‘unknown’.

The time series in this bulletin show figures for the number of employments furloughed each day, using all claims submitted to HMRC by 15 February 2021.

In producing the time series statistics some challenges had to be tackled. These included dealing with data on amendments to claims and claims for overlapping periods. In addition, claims for 100 or more furloughed staff may include staff furloughed for varying periods. These factors combined with some incomplete data (as mentioned above) make counting the number of employees furloughed over time complex.

The method employed is designed to generally prevent overcounting employments and may in certain circumstances very slightly undercount. Consequently, for the period to the end of June, the time series presented in this bulletin may typically slightly undercount the number of furloughed employments.

Methodology (cumulative figures - table 1)

The methodology used for the figure for the cumulative number of jobs ever furloughed since the start of the scheme (table 1 above) has been improved. Previously the method used was based on the figures for the total number of jobs furloughed on each claim. This choice had to be made because at the time the job-level information available for statistical purposes was incomplete for larger claims.

Over time – and particularly with the introduction of the CJRS extension – the previous method had started to undercount the total number of jobs furloughed.

The original method took the total number of jobs furloughed from all the claims made by each PAYE scheme. It then found the maximum number of jobs furloughed for each employer across all their claims. Finally, it summed these values for all PAYE schemes to arrive at a total number of employees furloughed.

The new approach uses job-level data. For this, we calculate the number of unique National Insurance numbers in the claims made by each employer, and then sum these. This information is supplemented by the employee’s name and payroll number in a small number of cases.

The cumulative number of employers making CJRS claims is calculated as the number of distinct PAYE schemes that have submitted a claim since the start of the scheme. The cumulative value of claims made is calculated as the sum of the amount claimed for each submitted claim.

Since the introduction of flexible furlough employers have been able to cancel claims made on the CJRS claims portal within 72 hours of making a claim. From the figures dated 15 February 2021 onwards, claims cancelled in this way have been excluded.

HMRC separately publishes figures for the value of claims paid to employers, in its monthly publication on tax receipts. Those figures are on a cash basis and reflect the time that the payments were made rather than the date that claims were received, so are slightly different to the figures included in this release.

User questions and feedback

We welcome questions and feedback. Our email address is: cjrs.statistics.enquiries@hmrc.gov.uk

Strengths and limitations

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) grants pre-release access to Official Statistics publications, and in accordance with the HMRC policy, pre-release access has been granted to a number of people to enable the preparation of a ministerial briefing.

Experimental Statistics status

The release is classed as Experimental Statistics as the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase. This does not mean that the statistics are of low quality, but it does signify that the statistics are new and still being developed. As the methodologies are refined and improved, there may be revisions to these statistics.

Rather than waiting until the development work has been completed, the statistics are being published now to involve potential users in developing the statistics. We hope that this encourages users to provide us with their thoughts and suggestions of how useful the statistics are and what can be done to improve them. Comments can be sent by email to CJRS.Statistics.Enquiries@hmrc.gov.uk.

More information about what it means for Official Statistics to be classified as Experimental Statistics is available from the Office for Statistics Regulation.

Office for Statistics regulation review

These statistics have been produced quickly in response to developing world events. The Office for Statistics Regulation, on behalf of the UK Statistics Authority, has reviewed them against several key aspects of the Code of Practice for Statistics and regards them as consistent with the Code’s pillars of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value.

Strengths of the data

The data used in this release includes all claims made by employers up until 15 February 2021 for support for the wages of furloughed staff up to 31 January 2021, rather than a sample. We have linked CJRS data to Pay As You Earn Real Time Information data (PAYE RTI) to provide the additional information presented in this release.

Revisions

In future iterations of this statistics release there may be some further revisions reflecting improvements to the data processing and methodology.

The figures in this release incorporate data on claims received by HMRC up to 15 February 2021 and cover employments furloughed up to 31 January 2021. The data for January is incomplete as late claims for the CJRS extension may still be filed with reasonable excuse and HMRC agreement. Amendments to January claims may be made until 1 March 2021.

Together it is expected that these factors will result in an increase in the level of furloughed jobs reported for January of about 3%. Thus, the figures for January should therefore be considered provisional results and are likely to be revised slightly upwards in a future release.

Related links

Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: February 2021 - Employee and earnings statistics from PAYE Real Time Information.

Labour market in the regions of the UK: February 2021 - Regional breakdowns of changes in UK employment, unemployment and economic activity

Employment in the UK: February 2021 - Estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for the UK.

Average weekly earnings in Great Britain: February 2021 - Estimates of growth in earnings for employees before tax and other deductions from pay.

HMRC coronavirus (COVID-19) statistics - Collection of HMRC data regarding COVID-19 response initiatives and policy.