Industrial group Siemens said on July 30 that it has resumed full-time work schedules at German sites owing to a pick-up in demand, following the lead of the auto industry.
In June of last year, 19,000 Siemens workers were affected by a partial work scheme, around 15% of the group's workforce in Germany.
This month, the state-subsidized program designed to keep staff in their jobs through downturns concerned only around 600 people.
In the third quarter of its year to September 2010, Siemens emerged from the global economic crisis with a 22% increase in orders worth almost 21 billion euros (US$27 billion.)
BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen have already said they would stop using the program as demand rebounded this year.
In May, the world's biggest chemical company, BASF, weaned itself off the scheme as well.
By the end of the year, around 100,000 workers should still be enrolled in the program, compared with a peak of 1.4 million at the worst point of the economic crisis, according to the German federation of chambers of commerce and business DIHK.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010
