Thousands of job losses planned last month, due to COVID-19

Last month, 58,000 people were due to be sacked by British employers, a freedom of information request from the BBC found.

Since April 2020, this brings the total to 498,000 redundancies.

Compared to figures in August 2019, there has been an increase of over 150%.

This comes as the coronavirus pandemic hit a number of big retailers including WH Smith, M & S and Debenhams.

According to a government spokesperson, supporting jobs and job seekers is an "absolute priority".

A senior economist from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Rebecca McDonald, said: "There was a sense of optimism in August, we were starting to see more spending and more activity, there were hopes for a quick recovery,"