A quarter of UK firms temporarily shut due to coronavirus - ONS

LONDON (Reuters) - A quarter of companies in Britain had temporarily closed or paused trading by early April due to the coronavirus lockdown, according to a survey published by the official statistics office on Thursday."For responding businesses who were still trading, an average of 21% of the workforce had been furloughed (under the terms of the UK government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme)," the Office for National Statistics said.A further 5% of the workforce were off sick or in..