A new study has shown that UK job losses in Autumn are expected to exceed 700,000.

According to the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), between 500,000 and 700,000 redundancies could be announced during autumn.

This is on top of 240,000 redundancies that have been announced already this year, taking the total number of job losses of 2020 to over a million.

The figures come amid the UK’s deepest recession.

“It would also be comfortably the highest level since this data series began in 1995,” said the report ”Sadly, much of this restructuring appears now to be inevitable and reflects both significant structural changes (either a result of, or accelerated by, the pandemic) and the damage already done to those firms most affected by the crisis.”

The government’s furlough scheme is coming to an end in October, which will see a new wave of job losses.

As the Autumn budget approaches, there is pressure from the government to support those affected.

Tony Wilson, the IES director, said: “We can do a lot more to minimise the job losses and support those who are most at risk.”

“Although most of those who were furloughed by their employers are now back at work, there are still many parts of the economy where perfectly viable businesses cannot bring people back because of the ongoing disruption caused by the pandemic. So we need tightly targeted support to help these firms ride out the next few months, where they can commit to not laying staff off.”