The furlough scheme, officially known as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, came to an end on Thursday (30 September) leaving many in travel with uncertain futures amid predictions of another wave of redundancies.

Government figures published last month revealed nearly 27,000 travel agent and tour operator staff were still on furlough at the end of July.

Many agency staff have already agreed to continue working at current levels of reduced hours and pay, according to a survey by Advantage Travel Partnership.

The majority of Advantage members (57%) said they had agreed with their teams to continue working on the same reduced hours and pay “for the time being” after the end of furlough.

While just under one-third (31%) of agencies planned to bring all their staff back on regular hours. Only 12% said they would be forced to make redundancies with the end of the support scheme.

Kelly Cookes, leisure director at Advantage Travel Partnership, said: “We have been drip feeding information through on this over the past six weeks or so with a particular focus on having conversations early and contractual obligations. Our HR partner also recorded a video earlier this month which went out to all members.”

Advantage has set up an internal recruitment service to support people who have been made redundant by matching them with members who have vacancies.

“Keeping the skill within the industry is a key concern at the moment, although currently we have more vacancies than candidates,” added Cookes.

Abta said it was supporting members post-furlough by offering free employment law advice, as well as online business resilience webinars.

“Members can also join and submit questions to the bi-weekly conference calls which tackle the latest information and guidance on important industry topics, and the member support team is available to offer any further guidance they may need,” said an Abta spokesperson.

Deben Travel is welcoming back three staff members next week who have been furlough, which will take the team back up to five. Owner Lee Hunt said: “I can’t wait to have our three team members back from furlough. It’s great for the team to come together.

“They are coming back on reduced hours. We’ve always been open and honest with them. We said this is how much money we’ve got to see us through the winter and it was their suggestion to work reduced hours.

“A couple of them have got second jobs. If things get busy, we would ideally increase their hours. I hope they will be on normal hours for January so hopefully we can cope with demand if there is a peaks next year.”

Mark Johnson, director of Polka Dot Travel, said they were looking to recruit around 10 staff to enable them to reopen more of their shops.

The agency chain currently has 11 of its 19 stores open, with Johnson saying the plan was to reopen the “vast majority” of the remaining eight outlets if they can find the staff.

“The end of the furlough has had no impact on us – we had already made a lot of people redundant early in the pandemic,” he added. “There was still a cost to the employer for putting people on furlough with tax and national insurance.

“It’s difficult getting staff and we will look at the option of bringing some people back into the fold. We may also pick up some people if other companies make redundancies.”