Ericsson to slash Swedish workforce

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) today has given its Swedish employees notice that it will shrink its headcount in its home country by approximately 1,550 people – just under 9% of its 17,768 Swedish employees as of September 30. The workforce reduction will touch “all job areas,” the company says, including sales, general and administration, research and development, supply, and service delivery.

The number of consultants and temporary workers Ericsson will employ also will be reduced “substantially,” the company adds.

The majority of the reductions will hit Ericsson's Networks unit, and reductions will take place at all of the company’s facilities in Sweden except for those in Falun, Hudiksvall, Kalmar, and Katrineholm.

Ericsson says it expects to remove 40 positions from its site in Borås, approximately 200 from Gothenburg - Lindholmen and Mölndal, 50 from Karlskrona, 106 from Kumla (106), 120 from Linköping, 10 from Luleå, 15 from Lund, 13 from Malmö, and about 1000 from Stockholm.

"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," Qvist added.

Ericsson says it has already started negotiating with the relevant union representatives about the layoff procedures. The company expects to inform affected employees next March.

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