Furlough not perfect but prevented mass unemployment, Sunak says

"But he said the government was "successful in preventing mass unemployment" and the impact of the pandemic on employment was "considerably better than what anyone had forecast at the early stages of the pandemic". Sunak also said there was "not a playbook" to deal with the economic shock caused by Covid, with ministers "dealing with something no one had dealt with before"."

"with policymakers and experts unsure of the scale and duration of the virus and how the population would respond to any measures imposed by the government. "There was not a toolkit, there was not a playbook that you could pull of the shelf that said this is how you tend to deal with pandemics in the same way you somewhat have with other economic shocks or financial shocks," he said."

Not every job could be saved during the Covid-19 pandemic, but government measures prevented mass unemployment. Employment outcomes were considerably better than early forecasts. No established playbook existed to manage the economic shock, and ministers confronted unprecedented circumstances. An enormous amount of uncertainty existed about the virus's scale, duration, and how the population would respond to measures. The public inquiry examined the economic response, hearing from former ministers, treasury officials and central bankers. The inquiry found the government delayed serious action, with February 2020 described as a lost month. The former chancellor was appointed under Boris Johnson.

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