Period covered: March 21Published: May 06, 2021Read time: 1min

Blogs

Retail furloughs drop in March

Retail furloughs fell in March and job adverts have been rising since February. While promising signs, the industry is a long way away from recovering its pandemic losses, with almost 1 in 5 workers still furloughed. Demand recovery remains the deciding factor for the fate of the industry.

As ‘non-essential’ retail was preparing to reopen, some of the retail workforce was brought back from furlough in March as furlough figures released today confirm. March retail furloughs dropped to 530,000, a decline of 11% compared to February. Nevertheless, retail furloughs made up 12% of all UK furloughs in March and 17% of the retail labour force, meaning that almost 1 in 5 retail workers were still furloughed in March.