Since the beginning of the pandemic and the first nationwide lockdown at the beginning of the
year, in March, the UK has seen more than three million people lose their jobs. While this might
not be true regarding the unemployment rate, these are the people who have lost their jobs.
Many of them are not unemployed since they are not looking to begin working just yet and are
waiting for the economy to start stabilising, which should start by the end of 2021. Additionally,
others were backed up by the Government scheme, and although they are working and paid, the
company cannot afford to keep them, and as soon as they pulled out the furlough scheme, they
would likely lose their jobs. However, there have been around three million people who have
signed up for unemployment benefits, which is as close to the correct number in the UK that
people would receive.
To protect the economy from these changes, as soon as the Government saw that things were
getting better, they decided that they would begin slowly opening up their markets. They were
now promoting coffee shops, restaurants, bars and pubs and allowing people to visit them. They
additionally implemented some rules that they had to follow to make sure everyone at the venue
was safe. People who were leaving their households had to wear masks when they were visiting
these places, had to sanitise properly, maintain social distance and make sure the locations were
following the rules relating to the right number of people.
Companies were forced to begin remote working and have their staff check-in from home.
Offices were not allowed to have the same number of people in, as they did before the
pandemic, since they had to make sure that they were following the right social distancing rules
and people just began working remotely. Most companies did not see any issues with this since
they were getting their work on time and meeting most of their deadlines. People had to adapt to
the changes made since it was the only middle ground. Many businesses like construction were
put on hold until things got better.
Smaller companies, whether product or service-based, were doing significantly better and many
of them were unaffected by the pandemic. Many of them even had to scale during the COVID
pandemic since there were significant demands for the work they were doing.
Employers who were hiring during the pandemic found themselves in a tough spot since they
were not even meeting the people they were hiring. Most of the people hired were met and
interviewed over a video call, and once they were chosen, their teams were coordinating with
them remotely. A common practice that started was going through background checks, which
were done through the DBS check. Other than receiving all the information about their
background, including their criminal history, their employers could conduct the entire test and
review their DBS certificate without leaving their office.