Age UK calls on government to help shielding older workers retain their jobs

As shielding restrictions are lifted on the 1st August Age UK is calling on the Chancellor to introduce a new ‘furlough-style scheme’ for all those workers who have been shielding, or who are at high risk and are not yet able to return to work safely, and whose jobs cannot be carried out from home.

New analysis by Age UK shows that 319,000 older workers (aged 50+) were advised to shield in March for health reasons. In addition there will be many others who live with someone who is extremely vulnerable and who need to continue to be extra cautious too.

Many older workers who have been shielding will be desperate to get back to work but for some the choices they face in a week’s time will be agonising: their health conditions mean they are at high risk from the virus, but not physically returning to their workplace in August could result in a drop in income at best, and a permanent withdrawal from employment at worst if they are forced to give up their job as a result. This is all the more worrying because we know that older people typically find it much harder to get back into work if they lose employment than younger groups.

Today Age UK is calling on the Government to provide continuing financial support for those shielders and others with serious medical conditions who usually work but who cannot return to their office or other work setting and who are unable to do their jobs from home. The Charity also wants the Government to provide support for businesses to help them keep their employees who are on the shielding list at home and to protect their jobs until it really is safe for them to return.

Age UK is asking the Government to ensure that employees who are at high risk from the virus are not forced to return to their workplace until it is safe to do so, by:

• Protecting shielded employees through implementing a new furlough-style support scheme for people who are clinically vulnerable and at special risk from Covid-19
• Ensuring that the employer/employee relationship is maintained throughout this period, so that people affected retain full employment rights and do not find themselves out of work because of their condition.
• Offering extra protection from dismissal for people who are coming back from furlough or from shielding, as proposed by the TUC among others
• Extending the right to work flexibly, thereby enhancing many shielders’ and older workers’ ability to work from home
• Clarifying the criteria for being classified as being at high risk from Covid19 and providing workplace assessments by clinical practitioners or health and safety assessors
• Clarifying the guidance on how to make workplaces ‘Covid-secure’ and putting in place arrangements for effective enforcement
• Making it easier for people to report health and safety breaches relating to Covid-19 in the workplace, should they occur.

“For the sake of employers as well as their staff we call on the Government to implement a new furlough-style support scheme at the current 80% level for workers who are shielding or who are exceptional risk from the virus, if August 1st is too early for them to return safely to work. These people shouldn’t have to choose between keeping their jobs or compromising their health, and their employers shouldn’t have to choose between letting valued staff go or funding them to stay away, not working.”

“It’s not just in the workplace where there may be a risk – it’s the travelling for those who are dependent on public transport to get to and from work.

“We fear that unless the Government intervenes to help, this situation is a recipe for unemployment among older shielded workers to soar. Yet these people who have been shielding have made great sacrifices over the last few months to protect themselves, their families and the NHS, and it would be hugely unfair if they lost their jobs now as a result.”