Big fall in the number of people on temporary unemployment
The use of the system of temporary unemployment by employers wishing to lay off staff temporarily due to them having to curtail or stop their activities as a result of the measures in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus has fallen back considerably. The system of temporary unemployment used in Belgium is similar to the furlough system that the Johnson government has used in the UK.
At the hight of the lockdown during the first week of April 30% of the labour force was laid off. Currently 4% of the workforce are laid off under the system. The figures come from a study carried out by the Belgian Enterprise Confederation VBO.
Since the peak in early April there has been an improvement spread over four stages. VBO says that these coincide with important relaxations of the lockdown measures. "
Afterwards it continued to move in the right direction, except for during the last weeks of August when we saw a slight increase that coincided with the initial indications of the start of a second wave”, VBO said in a press statement.