1,600 Volvo workers in Sweden face axe

Jan 15 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal

THE world’s second biggest truckmaker Volvo has given notice to 1,620 employees in Sweden as demand for new vehicles plummets.

The company said 1,020 employees had been given notice of redundancy within its Volvo Trucks business while a further 600 employees had been given notice at its powertrain unit.

“It boils down to weak order intake and we have customers that in the present environment don’t dare place orders due to the uncertainty.

“And we have no signs of improvement.” said Volvo spokesman Stefan Karlsson.

These are the latest in a series of cuts that has seen the company shed thousands of jobs in reaction to a sharp fall in demand across most of its key markets amid the fallout of the global financial crisis.

Late last year, Volvo said it would cut more than 2,000 jobs in its European truck business as well as 1,350 jobs in its construction equipment business.

Karlsson said the cuts at the group affected its units in the Swedish towns of Gothenburg, Umea, Skovde and Koping.

Nordea analyst Johan Trocme said: “It was more or less a given that there would be some more (cuts) and I don’t think one should count on this being the last of them either.”