Tuesday newspaper round-up: Hinkley Point, Cineworld, supermarkets, pensions

Thousands of workers from across the country will continue to gather on the Hinkley Point C nuclear site – but work on the £106bn HS2 project could be halted – amid differing approaches in the construction industry to physical distancing aimed at containing the spread of Covid-19. Some of the 4,000-strong workforce at Hinkley, Britain’s biggest construction project, have raised concerns over an outbreak of coronavirus at the Somerset site after the government shut down restaurants, pubs and schools to contain the outbreak elsewhere. - Guardian

Former and current employees of the UK’s biggest cinema chains are protesting at treatment by their employers in the wake of the national cinema shutdown due to the coronavirus outbreak. The Cineworld Action Group has criticised the response from Cineworld CEO Mooky Greidinger after widespread outrage over to company’s decision to terminate the employment “with immediate effect” of staff working at both Cineworld and its “boutique” arm Picturehouse. – Guardian

You work for a chain of supermarkets. It is 2005. Alongside others, your job is to oversee the supply and keep the shelves stocked from the company's headquarters. Your boss asks your team to “stress test” the systems in case of a pandemic, although there is no sign of one. You are shown fake news bulletins as the situation deteriorates. You go through multi-day exercises to keep the nation fed. This is not an exercise of imagination. Like governments across the world, supermarkets prepare for such scenarios. – Telegraph

Thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure firms have been given a last-minute reprieve allow them to suspend rent payments to landlords for at least three months. Landlords will be banned from evicting commercial tenants during the period as part of the latest government support for businesses during the coronavirus crisis. – Telegraph

About 7.5 million low and moderate earners in Britain have lost between 13 per cent and 18 per cent of their pension pots since the coronavirus crisis began. The National Employment Savings Trust, which is the default pension fund used by 400,000 employers auto-enrolling their staff, said that its members had avoided the worst extremes of the stock market slump, but were not immune. – The Times

Banks have been inundated with requests for emergency loans as a government-backed scheme that could underwrite more than £1.2 billion of credit to small businesses was launched. However, small companies whose trade has been damaged by the coronavirus pandemic said yesterday that they were struggling to reach their lenders as they sought access to the loans. – The Times