About a quarter of UK firms have temporarily closed due to the pandemic, and two-thirds are furloughing some staff. That is according to the Office for National Statistics. It just reported that 23 percent of businesses who responded to its latest survey said they had “temporarily closed or paused trading” last month, the Guardian reports. Also, 67 percent of responding businesses had applied for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), with 28 percent of the workforce in these businesses being furloughed. Only 35 percent of the 17,623 businesses contacted by the ONS responded.

Source: The Standard May 07, 2020 09:11 UTC