“The figures released today support our finding that five years of employment growth have been wiped out in one month. With almost 2.5 million people making a Universal Credit claim during March and April, seven times higher than normal, and 6 million people furloughed under the government’s scheme, this means around one in five adults has either lost their job or been furloughed.

“It could’ve been worse without measures like the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: 6% of working age adults made a Universal Credit claim, whereas more than double that proportion of Americans have filed unemployment claims. But we now need a plan to help transition from emergency support to getting people safely back to work.”