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For this British travel agency, furloughs offered a lifeline

Sep 24, 2021
As the United Kingdom's furlough program comes to an end, travel agent Claire Moore faces tough decisions on how to bring her employees back to work.
The United Kingdom's furlough program covers up to 80% of the salary of workers if companies kept them on payroll, rather than laying them off.
Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images

Airlines get relief funds, but travel rebound may take a while

Dec 29, 2020
The measure includes money that will allow the airline industry to bring back furloughed workers through March.
A pilot walks through New York's LaGuardia Airport on Dec. 3.
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For furloughed workers, the psychological toll can be as heavy as the economic one

Oct 1, 2020
Add in the pandemic, the struggle for racial justice and the uncertainty surrounding the election, and the anxiety can be overwhelming.
Being furloughed, combined with the struggle for social justice and the uncertainty around the election and the pandemic, can be overwhelming.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Furloughs turning into permanent layoffs as pandemic drags on

Sep 8, 2020
Job losses are moving past lockdown-hit businesses to other sectors that were doing fine for a while.
Every month a worker is on temporary unemployment, they have about a 10% to 15% chance of transitioning to a permanent separation, according to one labor economist.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Nearly a third of Americans worry about having their work hours cut or losing their jobs

Sep 1, 2020
And according to Americans who've already lost their jobs, they should be.
An employee at the newly reopened Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. With unemployment widespread, many people who have kept their jobs are worried about losing them.
Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

Has the COVID-19 crisis killed live theater in the UK?

Jul 29, 2020
One of Britain’s most successful industries struggles to recover from the pandemic.
The empty London Coliseum theater. After mass closures, the industry fears that full recovery is far off.
Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Work-sharing programs allow companies to keep furloughed workers

Jun 17, 2020
Not all states have the programs, in which workers' hours are cut and unemployment benefits are used to fill in wages.
An employee at a cafe in Los Angeles in March. Work sharing is one solution to keep people employed during the COVID-19 recession.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

What's the difference between a furlough and a layoff?

Mar 24, 2020
The distinction matters for your personal economy and the economy at large.
Victor J. Blue/Getty Images

The shutdown will impact GDP, but individual workers will bear the brunt

Jan 24, 2019
The White House has estimated that the partial government shutdown will reduce economic growth in the U.S. by 0.13 percentage points for every week the government remains closed. Speaking on CNBC yesterday, Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said those effects would be temporary. “We will get it all back,” he said, once […]
Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, arrives outside the White House to speak with reporters in December.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

What the partial government shutdown could mean for FBI agents

Jan 23, 2019
A new report looks into the long-term impact.
FBI Agents Association member Thomas O'Connor holds up an FBI report 'Voices From the Field' giving examples of how the government shutdown is undermining their work on drug and gang enforcement, security, and counter-terrorism, as he speaks during a press conference in Washington, DC, on January 22, 2019.
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