BoE's Haldane warns against furlough scheme extension

The Bank of England's Any Haldane cautioned against delaying the inevitable through an extension of furlough schemes, offering alternatives, even as he sounded a relatively upbeat note on the economy.

In remarks to City AM, Bank chief economist, Andy Haldane, said that the pandemic had already delivered structural change so in some ways "keeping all those jobs on life support is in some ways prolonging the inevitable in a way that probably doesn’t help either the individual or the business."

Instead, the best thing that could be done was to help those impacted adjust, with policymakers' task being to make the process as painless as possible for everybody.

An alternative put forwards by Haldane was to focus on wage restraint and perhaps even reducing hours before looking at letting people go, which could help to keep job losses lower.

He also tabled the possibility that some companies' debt could be alleviated if they could not pay it back.

Haldane also argued that the recovery in the economy was not "being given enough credit", saying that "the consumer has shown themselves to be incredibly resilient and adaptive and so too have businesses."

Nonetheless, the chief economist was fully aware of people's anxiety.

"It's understandable right now why people are concerned, they’re worried, they’re anxious [...] there are plenty of things to be concerned, worried and anxious about."