This scheme was reinforced in 2009 to assist enterprises and reduce layoffs during the crisis:

• access was extended to all workers including office (white collar) workers, temporary staff and agency workers;
• the amount of the partial unemployment benefits was significantly increased;
• partially unemployed workers were allowed to undertake training.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has indicated that this scheme has enabled more than 40,000 jobs to be saved in Belgium during the crisis (a record within the OECD zone). Belgium is also one of the European countries where unemployment increased at the lowest rate during the crisis.

This is a good practice which helps to prevent layoffs and full unemployment.