Transport for London (TfL) will furlough 7,000 staff, around a quarter of its total workforce, on Monday for an initial period of three weeks.
The transport body will pay the staff through the government’s Coronavirus Jobs Retention Scheme, which covers 80 per cent of furloughed workers’ wages up to £2,500 a month. This would save TfL £15.8m every four weeks, it said.
London’s transport commissioner Mike Brown said revenue from fares, TfL’s main source of income, had fallen by 90 per cent during the lockdown. The organisation was discussing a separate financial support package with the government, he said.
“We hope for an urgent agreement so that we can continue to provide the city with the vital transport it needs now and going forward.”