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One in four Swedish firms planning layoffs

The Local Sweden
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One in four Swedish firms planning layoffs

Every fourth Swedish company has listed staff cutbacks as a top priority as they struggle to remain profitable in 2013, according to report released on Friday.

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A gloomy outlook for Europe and Sweden was the main reason behind almost 25 percent of companies stating that job cuts were high on the list of cost saving measures this year.

This is an increase of more than 30 percentage points compared to a similar survey from last year.

The report was produced by The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, (Kungliga Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien - IVA) and the Axholmen consultancy and published in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper (DN).

According to the report, 60 percent of companies believe the economy will be worse in 2013 than last year.

The findings were based on a series of interviews with 131 CEOs from as many Swedish companies, the majority being in the energy, manufacturing and raw material industries, as well as within the trade and transport sectors.

Seventy percent of the companies plan to "streamline" remaining staff, by giving remaining employeesmore responsibility in order to tackle the excess work left over in the case of redundancies.

"This means that the companies have to start making priorities in their business," explained Jakob Holm, the CEO of Axholmen, to DN.

"A risk that could follow is that the employees will be hit by fatigue. This is something the companies have to take into consideration."

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