furlough
furlough – sostantivo
furlough – verbo
furloughing – sostantivo
The coronavirus job retention scheme, which paid furloughed staff 80% of their wages, has been extended to the end of October.
A majority of UK businesses have furloughed some, if not all, of their employees.
From August, furloughing will become more flexible, allowing for part-time work.
Any employees you place on furlough must be furloughed for a minimum of 3 consecutive weeks.
Il sostantivo e il verbo furlough erano relativamente poco usati nell’inglese britannico fino a qualche mese fa. Il British National Corpus, che risale agli inizi degli anni 1990, riporta solo una manciata di citazioni, perlopiù da fonti militari o storiche. Nell’inglese americano, invece, furlough è piuttosto comune sia nel business sia nell’amministrazione pubblica. In Gran Bretagna il termine è entrato prepotentemente nel linguaggio comune quando a marzo il ministro delle Finanze e del Tesoro, Rishi Sunak, ha annunciato un ambizioso piano di sostegno economico alle imprese costrette a chiudere i battenti a causa della pandemia. Il governo si è impegnato a sostenere una sostanziosa percentuale della retribuzione dei dipendenti delle imprese che accedono al piano, fino a ottobre (da agosto il datore di lavoro dovrà partecipare in misura maggiore alla retribuzione).
Origini del termine
Il termine furlough risale al XVII secolo e fino a marzo era molto più comune nell’inglese americano che in quello britannico. Perché dunque Rishi Sunak l’ha adottato per riferirsi al suo programma? Probabilmente perché ha trascorso vari anni negli Stati Uniti, ma questa è solo la mia impressione.
Traduzione di Loredana Riu
furlough – noun
furlough – verb
furloughing – noun
The coronavirus job retention scheme, which paid furloughed staff 80% of their wages, has been extended to the end of October.
A majority of UK businesses have furloughed some, if not all, of their employees.
From August, furloughing will become more flexible, allowing for part-time work.
Any employees you place on furlough must be furloughed for a minimum of 3 consecutive weeks.
The noun and verb furlough have been around for a long time but until recently were not much used in British English. The British National Corpus, compiled at the beginning of the 1990s, has only a handful of citations, mostly from historical or military sources. Furlough has been more widely used in American English, where it is commonly used in business as well as public administration. As far as British English is concerned the situation changed in March of this year. The term furlough was suddenly on everyone’s lips when the Chancellor of Exchequer, who controls the government’s purse strings, announced ambitious plans to support businesses forced to close due to the pandemic by paying the bulk of their workers’ salaries. In May it was announced that the scheme will be extended to October, with workers allowed to return to work part time and employers asked to pay a greater proportion of their salaries from August.
Origin
The term furlough has been around since the 17th century but until recently was much more common in American than British English. My hunch is that the Chancellor’s use of the term may be due to the fact that he has spent time in the US, but it is only a hunch.
