EXCLUSIVE: NI set to be hardest hit region of UK as furlough winds down

Some of the most important sectors in the local economy — manufacturing, hospitality and construction — have shown a greater reliance on the employment subsidy scheme than other UK regions, according to the figures sourced by the Labour Party from the Commons Library at Westminster.

A greater proportion of Northern Ireland’s self-employed have also been forced to rely on coronavirus subsidies than any in other part of the UK.

Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Labour MP Louise Haigh, writes in today’s newspaper of her “real fear” of mass unemployment as the furlough scheme winds down.

That process started yesterday, with employers now asked to contribute to furloughed workers’ wages for the first time since March.

The unprecedented job retention scheme is set to come to a halt at the end of next month.

Based on ‘real time information’ from the PAYE tax system and other data from HMRC, the figures show that in the ‘accommodation and food services’ sector, 41,500 of the 51,400 workers in Northern Ireland have been relying on furlough to keep their jobs.

At an 81% take-up rate, that ranks as the highest in the UK for the sector.

Northern Ireland’s construction industry, which officially employs 34,200 people, had the second highest take-up rate of furlough in the UK at 71% or 24,100 workers.

The only region higher was Scotland, with 72% of construction workers on furlough.

In London, the figure is 57% and in England as a whole it is 58%.

The data paints a similar story for the manufacturing industry — one of the largest areas of the private sector in Northern Ireland in terms of jobs.

Of the 88,000 manufacturing workers in Northern Ireland, 48% (42,400) are on furlough. That’s a higher proportion than the figures for England, Scotland and Wales and behind only the West Midlands region of England.

Across all sectors, around 250,000 workers have been placed on furlough in Northern Ireland.

Data taken from the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme shows that Northern Ireland had a take-up rate of 81% — compared with 76% for England, 76% for Scotland and 78% for Wales.

This comes as a new report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office reveals the vast scale of the UK Treasury’s multi-billion pound spending on tackling the coronavirus pandemic here — even without factoring in the cost of the furlough scheme.

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