The Workers Union has urged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to provide ailing businesses with another cash boost to assist them in getting back on their feet.
The appeal comes as Confederation of British Industry (CBI) chief Tony Danker said the government should extend the furlough scheme.
Mr Danker’s intervention was part of the CBI’s budget submission. Its headline figures include a call for an additional £6 billion to underwrite furlough until the end of June and longer VAT repayment periods.
Danker said: ‘The budget comes at a crucial time for the UK. The government’s support from the very start of this crisis has protected many jobs and livelihoods, and progress on the vaccine rollout brings real cause for optimism.’
‘But almost a year of disrupted demand and extensive restrictions to company operations is taking its toll. Staff morale has taken a hit. And business resilience has hit a sobering new low.’
The budget is due to be announced in six weeks’ time on the 3rd of March. However, industry experts are predicting that many firms will go bust before then if extra help fails to materialise. Last week, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) claimed that 250,000 small businesses may disappear due to the restrictions imposed by the Coronavirus lockdown. This is in keeping with the general economic outlook, which could see growth stuttering to a miserly 4.3 percent in 2021.
The Workers Union on Protecting Jobs and Business
In a normal year we’d expect to see firms collapse through a combination of bad investments, poor decision-making or effective competition. But this is not a normal year and neither was the 12-months that preceded it. Agency has been taken from business leaders and placed in a blind, microscopic particle of DNA and protein. This unlikely scenario has scarred the economic landscape of this country to the point that the deep welts will take years to heal.
However, we should not cower beneath the parapet and wait for the storm to pass. Affirmative action is what is required and that means providing appropriate cash boosts for business. After all, it will be the hard-working people of this country that recover our economic equilibrium, and they need jobs and growth to give them hope and opportunity.
So we say to the government, make the right moves now and improve our chances of recovery. You owe it to the working people of this country.
The Workers Union – Fighting for Social Justice, Fighting for You
