Clifford

We have added the government furlough data to our DoordaBiz product. It contains the name, company number and a band showing the amount claimed for every claimant by month. Coverage starts in December 2020 and will be updated monthly. We have looked into the key statistics behind the data.

Background

In March 2020, the government announced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to allow employers to keep employees on payroll during the pandemic. Employees can currently receive 80% of their usual salary, supplied by the government, up to a limit of £2500 per month. The scheme was initially planned to end in June 2020 but has been extended 5 times and is now set to end in September 2021. The government’s contribution will be tapered down to 70% in June 2021 and then to 60% in August 2021, with the employer being required to provide the remaining amount up to 80% plus NICs and pension contributions.

From December 2020 the government has released banded data on how much each employer has claimed in total by month. Employers are placed in one of the following bands based on how much they have claimed:

  • £1 to £10,000
  • £10,001 to £25,000
  • £25,001 to £50,000
  • £50,001 to 100,000
  • £100,001 to £250,000
  • £250,001 to £500,000
  • £500,001 to £1,000,000
  • £1,000,001 to £2,500,000
  • £2,500,001 to £5,000,000
  • £5,000,001 to £10,000,000
  • £10,000,001 to £25,000,000
  • £25,000,001 to £50,000,000
  • £50,000,001 to £100,000,000
  • £100,000,001 and above

How much was claimed?

In January 2021, 15.7% of active UK companies have furloughed employees. If we sum the mid-point of the reported bands we can make an estimate for the total amount claimed by month. The approximate amount claimed in December 2020 was £4,573,932,500. This rose to £5,780,272,500 in January 2021.

The number of claimants, however, actually fell very slightly from 720586 in December to 720534 in January. This implies the same companies were placing more employees on furlough rather than new companies joining the scheme.

This is further shown by the fact that the number of claimants claiming £1 – £10,000 fell from 93.8% in December to 92.7% in January.

A logarithmic graph showing the number of claimants of each band for January and December.

The graph above shows the vast majority of claimants in December and January were in the first band, claiming less than £10,000 per month. This suggests many small companies were taking advantage of the scheme and this is likely to help the recovery of small businesses post lockdown.

Want to know more about our Biz product? Furlough data is a small part of our ever growing database on registered companies and associated information.