| UPDATED: 09:47, Wed, Jan 20, 2021
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The unprecedented scheme was brought in by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, who has designed the programme to pay workers 80 percent of their wages up to a maximum of £2,500. The scheme proved so essential last year that it has been extended to cover the period until April as the country looks to its vaccination programme as a way out of the pandemic shackles. And as a new variant of the Covid virus grips the country, the furlough scheme is as essential as ever right now.