Nearly two thirds of adults travelling to work, says ONS

Close to two in three UK adults are now travelling to work, as employers are slowly asking their staff to come back to offices, shops and other workplaces across the country.

The Office for National Statistics said that 62% of adults reported that they were getting back to their workplaces, the highest proportion since the statisticians started collecting the data.

It comes months after the proportion hit a low of 36% in late May, however the statistics were only collected from the middle of May so miss out nearly two months of lockdown.

However, the new travellers seem to include few workers who have been able to do their jobs from home during the pandemic.

While the proportion of people travelling to work rose from 57% two weeks ago to 62% in the most recent measurement, the number of people exclusively working from home stayed stable at 20%.

Instead, “the proportion of working adults not working from home or travelling to work reducing from 23% to 18%, suggesting more people are returning to work”, the ONS said.

Meanwhile, around one in 10 workers are still furloughed, according to the ONS.

This level is likely to reduce over coming weeks as the Government has started to scale back the amount of money it pays out to furloughed workers.

Companies who want to furlough their staff were forced to pick up at least 10% of the bill from the beginning of this month, and in October they will have to pay 20%.

The scheme will be removed entirely from the end of October.

Around 19 in 20 people reported that they are wearing face coverings, a proportion that has remained fairly unchanged since the beginning of August.