BORIS Johnson has warned Britain will be battered by more job losses this year as Covid hammers high streets.
The PM admitted restrictions are likely to lay waste to businesses as they drag on into 2021.
But he predicted Britain will eventually bounce back from Covid-19 “like a trampoline”.
He vowed the Treasury will carry on its business grants and furlough scheme so hardworking Britons do not end up penniless.
In a grim warning, he said: “We must face the reality of the challenge ahead — the bitter economic consequences of being forced to fight Covid with lockdowns. We know that many people have lost, and will continue to lose, their jobs through absolutely no fault of their own.
“We will continue with our measures to help business, and protect jobs and livelihoods.”
But he said Britain is the “best country on Earth” at creating jobs and it will lead the way in new, green professions.
The PM said: “I see not only a UK leading the world in making green energy and tackling climate change, I see the creation of hundreds of thousands of high-skill, high-wage jobs that will last for a generation.”
The coronavirus pandemic has sparked the biggest surge in unemployment in a decade.
The most recent official figures show another 138,000 workers were laid off between June and August 2020 — the largest rise since 2009’s global crisis.
But experts have predicted a “roaring Twenties” as Britons finally freed from lockdown splurge their savings.
