In Britain, hundreds of thousands of people have left jobs to begin taking classes. The furlough program was designed to prevent layoffs by offering government subsidies of up to 80 percent for employees whose jobs were affected by the pandemic. Over the past year and a half, the program has supported 11.6 million jobs. In late August, there were 1.7 million active job advertisements in Britain, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. For another, the kind of work they are seeking is unlikely to neatly match the jobs that need filling.

Source: International New York Times September 13, 2021 09:00 UTC