The jobs market will be flooded with labour when furlough comes to an end in September, employment experts have said, but only partly because of firms shifting unviable staff.
Recruitment experts and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have both said Rishi Sunak's extension of the furlough scheme will to some extent put off inevitable job losses, but also will prevent a jobs bloodbath.
Shaun Sadler is the regional senior operations leader for DWP and said: "What this extension has done is give industry some certainty. I can entirely see why it's been extended until September - even if it might mean some people who would otherwise remain redundant will stay employed.
"That's because this timescale gives businesses enough time to get back up and running, get their clients back through the door and some cash in the bank, before they have to start paying all of their staff at once.
"This is especially important for sectors like hospitality which will be hoping for a really strong summer season if they can reopen."
Melanie Marjoram, regional manager for recruitment firm Reed, said: "I definitely think we're going to see an influx into the labour market in September.
"Partly that will be down to businesses looking at whether they can keep people on if they don't have furlough, but also because a year has passed and a lot of people might have changed their mind about what they want to do with their careers.
"People may be asked to go back into the office and then realise actually, they want to do something else. The main thing will be for people to keep their skills up-to-date. I would like to think employers are giving this support but there's also plenty of resources Reed can offer, or via the government, which people can access."
But Mr Sadler added that he could not rule out a further extension of the scheme: "Everything is dependent at the moment, we simply can't know what's going to happen in three months time.
"Who knew we would even be having the conversation now about extension before we heard about the new variant of the virus. We have to operate on policies a few months at a time and react accordingly."
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