Four in ten small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) used at least one of the three major government support measures. Half of those companies even applied for multiple support measures. This is reported by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Friday.
Until July 31, 164,000 companies with between 2 and 250 employees used one or more schemes. The number of approved aid applications is higher because many companies used multiple schemes.
NOW 1.0, the wage cost allowance, was the most popular scheme. In total, more than 106,000 companies made use of this. More than 95,000 companies made use of the COVID-19 Entrepreneurs Allowance for Affected Sectors (TOGS), a one-off allowance of 4,000 euros. Finally, more than 64,000 companies applied for tax deferment.
Nearly 22,500 companies took advantage of all three schemes. About 58,000 companies combined two measures.
In addition to the three large schemes, there were also a lot of smaller schemes, such as the SME Loans Guarantee (BMKB). If you count those schemes, you see that smaller companies with between ten and fifty employees made the most use of all the support measures that the government offered. A total of 58 percent registered for one or more schemes. More than half of the times, those smaller companies combined different schemes.
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