At its meeting on 19 December, the board of directors at Biesse spoke in favour of an extension until 10 August 2013 of the short-time working arrangement agreed in 2012. The state-subsidised short-time set-up (Cassa integrazione straordinaria) is to apply in rotation to the 1,250 work force. Biesse envisages the possibility of complete lay-offs for a maximum of 150 employees. In addition, it was decided to form reserves of €1.85m for restructuring measures to be implemented in the first half of 2013 in Italy and to some extent in Spain. Biesse justifies the board‘s decisions with the negative economic climate in the group‘s core markets.