Furlough 'prevented mass Covid job losses'

Sunak: Ministers told not to intervene too early

- BY ANNA WISE

Rishi Sunak leaves the inquiry yesterday

NOT all jobs could be saved during the pandemic but the government prevented “mass unemployment”, Rishi Sunak said yesterday.

The former prime minister also said he was advised by medical officials not to “go too early” with interventions at the start of the crisis.

Mr Sunak, who was Chancellor at the height of the problem, having stepped into the role in mid-February 2020, was giving evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in London.

He said: “It wasn’t going to be possible to save every person’s job and people were going to experience economic hardship as a result of what was happening.”

But he said the government was “successful in preventing mass unemployment” and that the impact on jobs was “considerably better than what anyone had forecast at the early stages of the pandemic”.