A LOOPHOLE in the government's emergency job retention scheme has left thousands of people who were due to start new jobs in an uncertain financial position.

Workers moving jobs in March can't be included in the furlough scheme - and receive 80 per cent of their wages - by their new employer as they weren't on the payroll at the Feburary 28 cut-off date.

They have been told to ask their old employer to add them back onto their payroll to gain access to the scheme - but for some that hasn't been possible.

One Glasgow woman said employers are "not compelled" to take back old employees.

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She said: "My husband left his place of work after giving notice. He could have started the new job immediately mid-February but stayed on for the period of notice to give his old employer the chance to recruit and and train new staff.

"Because of that he now falls into the new starter furlough exclusion. And his old employer inexplicably refuses to assist him in accessing the furlough he ought to be entitled to and which our family needs to weather this period."

She said it is now an anxious time as their finances are "insecure" and added: "It seems inconceivable to me that a business would deny someone such a basic and relatively simple form of help in a time when the national mantra is to help and do right by one another."

The loophole has also caused problems for workers in creative industries. Paul McManus, from the Glasgow office of Bectu, the union for staff, contract and freelancer workers in the media and entertainment industries, said many of his members on PAYE contracts were due to start new projects in early March and weren't in employment on the cut-off date.

A Facebook group - New Starter Furlough - now has more than 5000 members after it was set up just over a week ago. Its members are campaigning for support for those affected.

And a petition, calling for the "huge oversight" to be amended, has been signed by over 56,000 people.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: "If you were on payroll before the 28th and left for any reason it's perfectly possible for you to ask your company to take you back and furlough you."

However, he said it was "really difficult" for people who started work after February 28.

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He said the cut-off date was needed to check "people were employed by a company at that time otherwise the whole system is open to enormous fraud risk, of just anybody saying that they were working and would be furloughed".

"We need to be fair to the taxpayer as well who is ultimately going to pay for all of these," he said. "That's why we have to have a check and a cut-off.

"We need to be able to process these claims and then verify them against something and the only thing we have to do that is the payroll data.

"We've made lots of changes and improvements to Universal Credit to help those who might not be able to be furloughed. I think those changes are significant and could make a lot of difference to many families."

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