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Figures this week showed that there were more than eight hundred thousand fewer workers on UK company payrolls in November than at the start of the pandemic. Hospitality was the worst hit sector, accounting for a third of the job losses, followed by retail. New research, from the Institute for Future work, also suggests that of those who have been made redundant during the pandemic - six in ten are looking to get work in a completely new industry. We'll speak to Professor Sir Christopher Pissarides the 2010 Nobel Prize laureate in economics about that. He is also co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work.

Getting on the housing ladder for the first time, has always been difficult. This year first time buyers had to contend with a tough market - fewer mortgages on offer and demands of bigger deposits. The number of 90 percent loan-to-value deals dropped sharply over the spring and summer because of the pandemic. Now some of the big lenders have relaxed their rules again - Barclays and TSB have started to offer low-deposit mortgages in the past few weeks. We'll speak to Richard, who's buying his first home about that and Rachel Springall from Moneyfacts, it's a comparison website for financial services.

And, we'll discuss how video games are stopping some people from feeling lonely during the pandemic. We'll speak to some friends who live separate places in the UK but have spent hours playing the latest Animal Crossing game together on the Nintendo Switch console during lock down.

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Jess Quayle