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The pandemic of coronavirus has claimed so far the lives of more than 44,000 people in the Uk, according to official figures. This tragedy sum the economic crisis that has caused the outbreak and that the Government of Boris Johnson thinks to tackle with a plan of action in addition to the measures put in place since the beginning of the emergency. The minister of Finance, Rishi Sunak, today presented in the Parliament a plan of thousands of millions of pounds to promote the economic recovery of the nation, and one of his key points is to stop the increase in unemployment. Among other measures, he announced a scheme for creation of temporary employment of two billion pounds (about 2,22 billion euros) for minors under the age of 25 years. “Our plan has a clear objective: to protect, support and create jobs. It will give companies the confidence to retain and hire,” he said.

Sunak also announced a bonus plan to the companies that re-employ suspended workers for a value of up to 9,000 million pounds. Thus, employers will receive a bonus of one thousand pounds for each employee suspended, not fired. “We will do everything we can to help prevent the loss of jobs in the wake of Covid-19. No one will be without hope,” promised Sunak during his speech in the House of Commons, and asserted that the measures of financial support “extraordinary” of the british government have been among “the most powerful in the world. Despite this, the Uk still “faces challenges and deep loss of significant work,” he explained. According to the minister, will be invested 1,600 million pounds in the expansion of the plans to support the training and learning.

Also announced a reduction of VAT from 20% to 5% to support the hotel industry, tourism and leisure and shall remain in force until January, which will cost 4.5 billion pounds. “This is a unique moment and we have to be creative,” said Sunak, before releasing the last measure, that “it has never been tested in our country,” he said. To encourage people to return to eating in restaurants the program “Eat Out to Help Out” (come out to help) will offer customers a 50% discount per person when eating at restaurants and pubs from Monday to Wednesday during the month of August.

The plan will also create, according to the minister, tens of thousands of jobs through investment in infrastructure projects, decarbonisation and maintenance of 8.8 billion pounds s. As part of this package, homeowners will be able to apply coupons to a plan of subsidies for organic 2 billion to pay for improvements that increase the energy efficiency.

The new measures are in addition to other previous ones, such as the special funds to the arts industry, the loans guaranteed by the state, the subsidies to small businesses and the suspension of the payment of the mortgage by three months. In June, prime minister Boris Johnson also announced the “Project Speed”, a plan of public investment of 250,000 million pounds (about 273.000 million euro) that will be injected in infrastructure, hospital, housing, schools, hospitals and other construction projects of large-scale, such as roads, prisons and the high-speed train between the capital and the north of the country.

The employment plan is the second part of a three-phase to ensure the economic recovery of the United Kingdom after the coronavirus. “The first phase of our plan was to protection, the second is about jobs and the third will be about reconstruction” said Sunak. The first stage was a support package of 160 billion pounds, which included 49 billion of additional funding for the vital public services of the country, including the NHS (national health system), paying the salaries of nearly 12 million people and supporting more than a million businesses through grants, loans, and rate cuts.

The OECD warned that if there is a second wave of coronavirus, the rate of unemployment in the Uk could increase to 14.8%, with job losses comparable to the thirties.

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