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Labour warns that vast majority of jobs are to slip through wage support scheme ‘safety net’

FEWER than one in every 15 jobs in sectors shut down or severely restricted by coronavirus rules will benefit from the expanded wage support scheme, Labour has revealed.

This is equivalent to more than one million people being left at risk of redundancy.  

Of those in severely restricted sectors, only 73,250 people – employed in nightclubs nationwide and in theatres or live music venues in Scotland and Wales – would have wages partly paid by the Job Support Scheme.

The small print in last week’s government’s announcement of the scheme’s expansion states that only businesses “legally” closed because of coronavirus will benefit from the new package, which replaces the furlough arrangements from November 1.

Among the jobs not benefitting from the scheme’s extension, around 500,000 in the wedding industry, around 370,000 in the sports industry, more than 170,000 in events and conferences and 85,750 in the creative, arts and entertainment sector in England are at risk.

These figures do not include people working in the supply chains.

Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said: “There are massive holes in the new safety net.

“Ministers must urgently rethink their damaging sink-or-swim approach, which consigns whole sectors of our economy to the scrapheap.” 

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