Reports

The COVID-19 crisis has caused drastic changes to most parents’ work lives and other responsibilities. Millions of adults have lost or are forecast to lose their jobs permanently; many more have stopped work temporarily. Others are newly working from home, while many key workers are experiencing additional pressures and risks in their work. For most parents, school and childcare closures have meant that children are at home, and requiring care, for at least an extra six hours a day.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) covers 80% of employees’ usual salaries, up to a cap of £2,500 a month, while they are furloughed. From August it will also provide support for employees who return from furlough but work reduced hours. This Briefing Note considers the implications of that change and how it might work.

Our research uses up to date real time data from DWP’s Find a Job website to track vacancy levels across all sectors of the economy and regions of the country.

This report looks at normal (pre-lockdown) commuting patterns, what they tell us about who would be affected by continued social distancing on public transport, and what they tell us about how policy can ease public transport congestion in a world of continued social distancing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented social distancing measures around the world to contain the spread of the virus. The UK has, like many countries, effectively closed down entire sectors of its economy and severely limited activity in many other sectors. This curtailing of activity is likely to lead to a sharp recession.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected some sections of the population more than others, and there are growing concerns that the UK’s minority ethnic groups are being disproportionately affected.

Council tax bands in Wales are based on property values in April 2003 – 17 years ago. That is more up to date than in England and Scotland, where they are based on values in April 1991 (almost 30 years ago!). But it is still enough time for the relative values of different properties to change significantly: for example, official estimates suggest that while average prices had doubled since 2003 across Wales as a whole by the end of 2019, those in Blaenau Gwent had risen 171% compared with just 77% in Wrexham.

The coronavirus pandemic, and the measures put in place to combat it, have changed almost everything about how people live their day-to-day lives. More than ever before, life today is being conducted behind the nation’s front doors.

Tuition fees from international students account for nearly a fifth of total income of the higher education sector. A big drop in international students would imperil university finances.

The coronavirus pandemic will have huge impacts on the National Health Service (NHS). Patients suffering from the illness are placing unprecedented demands on acute care, particularly on intensive care units (ICUs). This has led to an effort to dramatically increase the resources available to NHS hospitals in treating these patients, involving reorganisation of hospital facilities, redeployment of existing staff and a drive to bring in recently retired and newly graduated staff to fight the pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic is a public health crisis and global economic shock increasingly affecting lower-income countries around the world – external finance from international institutions and development partners can help plug financing gaps, but may become stretched as many countries around the world seek assistance.

The lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic has effectively shut down a number of sectors. We find that young people, women and low-earners are the most affected.

The Chancellor has introduced workable and generous income protection schemes for most employees and self-employed people that lose work as a result of coronavirus. But there are some groups who have seen no increase in protection.