Jobless workers and pensioners with families to support will be allowed to delay half their mortgage payments for up to two years under a government proposal.

Almost 22 per cent of jobless workers have been without work for 27 weeks or more.

It called for cash saved by robots to fund retraining for jobless workers.

For example, the longer jobless workers remain unemployed, the more their skills and professional networks can atrophy, potentially rendering these workers unemployable.