The Guardian view on furloughed workers: safe for now

The chancellor was right to extend the job retention scheme to the end of October. But the devil will be in the detail as the economy reopens

The job retention scheme unveiled by Rishi Sunak in March is estimated to be costing the government about 14bn a month. Rarely has money been better spent. By covering up to 80% of the wages of 7.5 million employees, the chancellor has ensured that economic catastrophe did not follow hard on the heels of a public health emergency. The unprecedented cost and scale of the scheme was testament to its necessity, after the economy entered into forced hibernation because of Covid-19. Without it, as both supply and demand for goods and services collapsed, the ranks of the unemployed would quickly have swollen to a size not seen since the 1930s. In the US, for example, which has no equivalent to Mr Sunak's scheme, the number of jobless rose by 20 million in April alone.

The government has made serious, lethal mistakes during the pandemic. This was one thing it got right. Yet the murmurs of disquiet in Mr Sunak's party - not noted for its love of expensive state interventions - had become audible as the policy's June expiry date approached. Earlier this month, Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 backbench committee, irresponsibly suggested that the furlough scheme may have left people a little too willing to stay at home". A senior government source" briefed journalists that widespread addiction" to life on furlough had taken hold.