UK Furloughed Employees and Turnover Intention: Survey Data, 2022

With the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, furloughed employees were supposed to return to their old jobs, but they are facing the risk of redundancy as their employers are insolvent. In fact, up to half of furloughed employees will not return as they are sticking with their new opportunities which they had been forced to find during the pandemic and lockdowns. This research project aims to examine the influences of furlough-induced costs on employee’s relative deprivation (caused when furloughed employees tend to compare with others or their own power and status in the time of pre-pandemic) and in turn facilitating job turnover intention. More importantly, the research will also concentrate on the moderating roles of perceived autonomy support and self-efficacy on new opportunities as two key employee centric factors. Four business sectors (Retail, Accommodation and Food Services, Events, Manufacturing) will be selected. Findings will inform policy recommendations and managerial implications.

The data for this study has been collected in 2022 at the end of Covid-19. We looked furloughed employees job status and perceptions of how furlough shape their job decisions if they had been furloughed during the period of crisis. Several construct we looked into, such as relative deprivation, perceived autonomy support, financial and psychological costs, job searching self-efficacy, and job turnover intention.