FACTORIES employing hundreds of disabled people in the North-East will not close after receiving the required number of applications for voluntary redundancy.
Remploy, with facilities in Spennymoor, County Durham, Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead and Ashington, asked for volunteers to take redundancy in January.
Yesterday it said that in the North-East 41 workers applied for voluntary redundancy, including one from the 42 strong workforce at Spennymoor, 19 from 78 people at Newcastle, five from 16 employees at Gateshead, eight from 42 workers at Sunderland and eight from 35 workers at Ashington.
The call for volunteers came as many of Remploy's factories nationally were operating at less than 50 per cent capacity because of the difficult economic climate.
Yesterday the company said it would not close any of its 54 factories nationwide as a result of the programme.
Nationally 770 employees out of 3,370 who were eligible applied for redundancy.
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