The Treasury has announced that 8.4 million workers are now covered by the UK furlough scheme.
The initiative, announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak to ease the economic impact of coronavirus while people could not work, was announced in late March just weeks after the spring budget.
It allows employees to receive 80% of their monthly salary, up to £2,500.
The furlough scheme, officially known as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, was initially planned to run from March to the end of July, but has now been extended until the end of October.
And while it has up until this point largely come at no cost to employers, Mr Sunak has said that he expects businesses to begin "sharing" the cost with the government from the end of August. Details of how a shared arrangement might work have not been revealed.
In total, the government now supports around 11 million UK workers - including those who are self-employed - at a cost of some £22 billion and counting.
BBC economics editor Faisal Islam has said the government are expected to announce measures soon that will "[enable] employers to bring back furloughed workers part-time".
