Ericsson cuts 1'550 jobs in Sweden

"It is naturally a difficult message for our employees in Sweden," says Tomas Qvist, head of Ericsson's Human Resources in Sweden. "We must ensure that we can continue to execute on our strategy to maintain our market leadership, invest in R&D and meet our customers' needs. To secure this we need to focus on reducing cost, driving commercial excellence and operational effectiveness. This will enable us to secure our future competitiveness. "Over the past couple of years we have been continuously driving these global efficiency measures across regions and units. And, sometimes redundancies are unfortunately inevitable," says Qvist. In absolute numbers, the majority of the reductions are in Ericsson's Networks unit, but all parts of the organization in Sweden are to some extent affected, impacting all its Swedish sites except Falun, Hudiksvall, Kalmar and Katrineholm. Estimated redundancies per site: Borås (40 positions), Gothenburg - Lindholmen and Mölndal (approx 200), Karlskrona (50), Kumla (106), Linköping (120), Luleå (10), Lund (15), Malmö (13), Stockholm (approx 1'000). Negotiations with the union representatives about how to handle the redundancies have started, and in March 2013 all employees concerned are expected to be informed. The number of consultants and temporary workforce will also be substantially reduced. Total number of employees in Sweden was 17,768 on September 30. Ericsson has sites in: Borås (approx 1,100 employees), Falun (approx 230), Gothenburg - Lindholmen and Mölndal (approx 2,200), Hudiksvall (approx 300), Kalmar (aprox 20), Karlskrona (675), Katrineholm (approx 400), Kumla (approx 650), Linköping (approx 1,300), Luleå (approx 50), Lund and Malmö (approx 100), Stockholm (approx 10,800).