Some 60% of the money set aside to allow companies to temporarily lay off staff has been spent, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday, quoting from a letter by social affairs minister Piet Hein Donner.

By January 15, 352 companies had been given permission to lay off staff or cut their hours for a period of up to 24 weeks. Companies have to prove their turnover has gone down by at least 30% because of the credit crisis to qualify.
Of those firms, 140 are in the engineering sector, the paper said.