British workers not eligible for the Government’s furlough scheme have been left homeless and unable to feed their families during the coronavirus pandemic.
Bar manager Daniel Scales, 46, of Cornwall, said he has been sleeping on a friend’s sofa after all pubs were closed just days into his new £34,000-a-year job.
He had started on March 9, which was too late to be eligible for furlough because a firm has to have employed a worker since February 28 to receive the money.
Meanwhile business development manager Rhiannon Heseltine was told to go home while travelling in for her first day in a new job in London on March 16.
She was later told she had an unsuccessful probation due to the virus, and could not be furloughed because she had not been at the firm before February 28.
The Coronavirus Job Retention scheme will give people 80 per cent of their usual earnings, meaning they can be furloughed rather than laid off from their firm.
Businesses will be able to pay their employees four-fifths of their regular monthly wage, or £2,500 a month, whichever is lower, until at least June 1.
It forms just one part of a £330billion emergency support package to keep the UK economy afloat, and to ensure firms do not have to lay off staff permanently.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has revealed measures over the last three weeks designed to prop up businesses, but many people have had to turn to the benefits system.
Analysis by the New Economics Foundation found up to 5.6million workers are at risk of losing their jobs or hours and being unable to access the support they need.
Some 1.6million of these are said to be at high risk because they work in industries directly affected by the shutdown, such as restaurants or non-essential shops.
Here are the stories of workers who have been left with no income because they unwittingly moved jobs before lockdown but now can’t be furloughed:
Daniel Scales, 46, bar manager
Daniel Scales’s new job as a bar manager in Cornwall started on March 9
Daniel Scales said ‘he has lost everything in three weeks’ and is now homeless after falling through the cracks of the government’s furlough scheme.
His new job as a bar manager in Cornwall started on March 9, where he was set to earn £34,000 a year and was given a flat next door to the pub with rent coming out of his wages.
The 46-year-old was behind the bar on the night of March 20 when the government announced all pubs would have to shut and his heart sank.
However, he was more optimistic when he found out there would be a furlough scheme to pay 80 per cent of his wages.
He said: ‘Who wrong was I? After a week of climbing the walls in an empty flat with no work to take my mind off stuff, we found out the devastating news the you have to be employed by the 28th of Feb and on the payroll.
‘I would get nothing what so ever and my heart sank and I was almost sick.’
He applied for universal credit, but was unable to continue to afford paying for his flat, bills and living costs.
Mr Scales was forced to move out his apartment and is now living on a friend’s sofa, where he has lost more than a stone in weight due to stress.
He said: ‘Inside three weeks I have lost everything including my dignity. I am a shadow of myself and hate what I see in the mirror.
‘I will receive no money from UC till May 3. I have paid tax’s all my life and this is the thanks and treatment I get? I am beside myself right now it is unreal.
‘I am being left out and forgotten. It is absolutely disgusting to treat thousands of people like this.’
Rhiannon Heseltine, 29, business development manager
Rhiannon Heseltine had worked for eight years at her previous company, where she earned £50,000 a year
Rhiannon Heseltine from Walthamstow, London, switched jobs to a contract catering company on March 16.
The 29-year-old had worked for eight years at her previous company, where she earned £50,000 a year.
She was set to become a business development manager at her new company, but was told to go home on her first day, one week before the nationwide lockdown came into effect.
She said: ‘On my first day, all suited and booted and ready to go I arrived at Farringdon station, I got of the tube and received a calls telling me to go home as the office was manic.
‘Three days later I received a call from the director to say I had an unsuccessful probation due to coronavirus.
‘I can’t apply for universal credit and now the coronavirus is costing me my savings.
‘ I have worked hard for 8 years to try save for a deposit for a house and now I’m losing my future for this.
‘There is zero support for myself and I have to face a future competitive job market with no promise of when I can get back to my normal life.’
She was unable to apply to the government’s furlough scheme because she had not been at the company before February 28.
Ms Heseltine still holds hope she will be given furlough by the company but is not optimistic of receiving any soon.
She said: ‘I am still pushing and I do have a good relationship with them but I’m currently sat in limbo.
‘The government are not really supporting the companies with the legal aspects or people like me who are just stuck.’
Zara Dines, 54, lighting worker
Zara Dines started her new job at MGC Lighting, a company which specialises in lighting for hospitals, on March 9
A mother said she ‘cannot support her daughters emotionally or financially’ after she missed out on the Government’s furlough scheme due to the loophole in regulations.
Zara Dines started her new job at MGC Lighting, a company which specialises in lighting for hospitals, on March 9.
The 54-year-old had worked at Jaguar/Land Rover for more six months before she interviewed for her new role in January and was offered the role on February 5.
The import-export coordinator from Ipswich joined her new company with no break in her employment but was put on unpaid leave after joining because she fails to qualify for furlough.
She said: ‘The stress and mental anguish this is putting on me and eventually us is unreal. I’ve never felt so isolated, depressed and down in all my life.
‘I asked previous employer to furlough me several times directly to the CEO but flatly refused my request.
‘I don’t qualify for any benefits – SSP JSA or SSP – and I’m high risk with asthma and another lung condition so I also can’t go out and find other temporary work.’
The former police and council worker has lost all of her £25,000 in wages and is having to ask her new partner who has been furloughed for support.
She said: ‘As a new-ish relationship I can’t ask him to pay my bills as well as his own and put a roof over my head.
‘My ex-husband has just come out of hospital having had Covid-19 and I couldn’t support my daughters emotionally or financially throughout all this.’
David Kinsley, 52, airport ramp agent
David Kinsley, pictured with his grandson, started work as a ramp agent on March 2
A grandfather has had to put himself at increased risk of coronavirus infection by applying for temporary work as a result of missing out on the government’s furlough scheme.
David Kinsley, from Crawley in West Sussex, started work as a ramp agent at Gatwick Airport on March 2.
The 52-year-old’s work was slowly reduced as the pandemic spread until on April 4 he was put on unpaid leave.
He said: ‘When the government announced its job retention scheme I did not qualify but was advised to ask my former employer to be put back on payroll and then furlough.
‘I emailed twice and they said no. I involved my local MP and again they refused.
‘Unless there is a change in government policy then I have to depend on Job Seekers Allowance.’
Mr Kinsley applied for JSA on April 2 but has not heard back yet so he has been without an income for two weeks.
He has applied for temporary work elsewhere but fears this will increase his risk of infection of the virus.
Ben Ashby, 27, product design engineer
Ben Ashby finished work at his previous company on February 28 and was given a week to relocate with his girlfriend, Megan, 29, to his new job in Leeds.
The 27-year-old began working as a product design engineer for a contract furniture manufacturer on March 9.
The business shut down on March 30 due to the workforce self-isolating and he was asked to take four weeks of holiday on 50 per cent of his salary.
If the business reopens and his job is still available he will be paid back 50 per cent of each weeks holiday every three months.
However, he has been given no guarantee of being able to start work again and is now facing the prospect of being jobless without being able to claim Universal Credit.
He said: ‘My new job was everything I had been working towards since leaving university and I finally felt settled.
‘These four weeks are up there is a very real possibility I will be made redundant.
‘I am worried that if this happens I will be unable to claim UC, correction, I know for a fact I am not entitled to it because my girlfriend is still receiving an income.’
He has been advised to contact his old employer to be rehired so he can apply for furlough, but says the company is still operating so he would not be allowed to furlough in any case.
Mr Ashby said ‘I am opting to carry on with using my holiday so I can remain employed with my new employer but after four weeks I will have to email my old employer and essentially beg.
‘I cannot stress enough that this is not the answer. It’s causing people more stress and anxiety.
‘As a hard-working tax payer who has built a career around my passion I feel let down and upset that I am a ‘trade off’ and will just have to deal with the fact that I may not have any income in a couple of weeks.
‘Yes, I will adapt and find work but it’s a matter of principle and the government has a lot of questions to answer to.’
Felicity Williams
A young woman said she has fallen through the cracks of the Government’s furlough scheme and unable to pay for food or rent after being left penniless between jobs.
Felicity Williams, from London, left her job at the end of March and was due to start a new role on April 1.
But when the coronavirus pandemic swept through Britain, her new employer was unable to furlough her – and her old boss has now refused to help her.
Ms Williams told BBC Radio 4 she has since been left without the means to pay her bills or food and cannot get Universal Credit because she lives with her boyfriend.
Ms Williams told Radio 4’s Today programme that she had approached her previous employer but had been flatly denied any help.
She told the show: ‘Unfortunately my new employers cannot furlough me which leaves me without any income at all.
‘I know the government guidelines are to go back to our last employers and ask them to furlough us.
‘My last working day with them was March 28. I’ve been to them four times now and pleaded with them to reemploy me to and put me on furlough just so I’ve got some sort of income coming in.
‘Every time it’s been a no. Unfortunately because I live with my boyfriend I can’t get Universal Credit because he has savings and he has an income which doesn’t help me.
‘I have my own bills, my own credit cards, my own loans that I need to pay off. Obviously I froze them for the short term but it’s not going to help me out in terms of paying bills, for food etc.’
Alice, City worker
A City worker who lost her job due to coronavirus told the show she is ‘now poor’ with just £30 a month left after mortgage payments.
Under the pseudonym Alice, the woman revealed how she used to shop at Waitrose and Marks and Spencer but was forced to seek out food banks.
‘I was used to having extra money being able to save being able to do my shopping at Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and then all of a sudden going from that to not earning anything – you’re now effectively poor,’ she told the BBC’s Today show on Radio 4.
Before heading out to the foodbank, she had tried to ignore the hunger she felt surviving on two meals a day by listening to podcasts.
‘I would have a bowl of porridge in the morning and then I would have for lunch a bowl of homemade soup, sometimes a couple of slices of toast that was it,’ she said. ‘It was a very, very poor diet – I was constantly hungry.’
She was terrified of going to pick up free food parcels for fear that she would be perceived.
First Secretary of State Dominic Raab (left) will reportedly tell the UK this week that lockdown will be extended until May 7. Chancellor Rishi Sunak (right) launched the furlough scheme
Alice said that the mere thought of visiting the charity gave her heart palpitations as she feared that the volunteers would question why somebody who sounds and looks affluent needed their vital services.
She was relieved when the volunteers came to her aid without any question, as foodbanks now expect people who were previously well-off to be visiting due to coronavirus job losses.
But she said that she’s still too scared to tell her friends and family that she’s relying on charity or to ask for their help, which is why she is using a fake name.
She said: ‘Admitting it to friends and family? Well I haven’t. They know that I’m not working but when they do ask me if I’m doing okay, I say I’m absolutely fine. I should perhaps be more honest and say ‘well actually, now you mention it’. But you don’t.’