The “furlough scheme” will now run until September 2021, as announced in the Spring Budget in March 2021. The government will continue to pay up to 80% of the salary of employees for hours they can't work, until September 2021, with a cap of £2,500 a month. Employers will still be required to pay the wages, National Insurance (NI) contributions and pensions for hours worked, as well as NI contributions and pensions for hours not worked. Nothing will change until July, when employers will be expected to pay 10% towards the hours their employees don't work, increasing to 20% in August and September, as the economy reopens. The government launched the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme in March 2020. It was initially set to run for three months (up to the end of May 2020). It has now been extended five times and it will have run for 18 months by the time it ends.