Volvo’s employment agency handling a potential 200 blue collar redundancies at the automaker, says strict Swedish jobs laws will force it to hasten the search for new recruitment.
The Lernia agency – Sweden’s second largest staff placement organisation – has issued 200 notices of redundancy to those it directly employs on behalf of Volvo, while a further 100 are hired on a fixed basis from the manufacturer with this ending at the begining of September.
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However, Sweden’s strict employment laws mean those staff Lernia hires out to Volvo must be found further work or formally made redundant, a deal hammered out with Sweden’s largest blue collar union, Lands Organisationen (LO).
“That is why we have to be so quick,” a Lernia spokesman told just-auto from Sweden. “Our agreement with the union [means] we have to give notice of redundancy one month ahead. We have really strong rules concerning this and then there is the European Union Staffing Directive – we have rules in Sweden that protect people even more than that.
“Our main income is to have these employees in some company doing some job – that is what we get paid for. We have a mutual interest in finding new assignments for them.”
Lernia has a list of potential new employers in Sweden should Volvo confirm the 300 redundancies at its half-year results next Wednesday (5 September), although this might not necessarily include those in the automotive industry.
“We are the number two contributor of blue collar staffing in Sweden, so we have a number of companies,” said the Lernia spokesman. “If there is no space for them at Volvo, then maybe we have the option to rent [hire] them out, we are working on it. This is the way in Sweden that industry works – it goes up and it goes down. We are always dealing in uncertainty – we jump from one uncertainty to another.”
Many former Saab staff, who lost their jobs earlier this year are now also possibly facing the axe at Volvo, although their exact number is as-yet unclear.
Volvo would not confirm the redundancies, except to tell just-auto today (31 August): “We will comment upon everything when it comes to volumes and reductions in staff at that [conference] occasion,” a Volvo spokesman told just-auto from Gothenburg.
