January: News from Ingenjören in English
Left: Ingenjörens´s guide in English. Photo: Ingenjören and Getty Images.
Read about what could become the key issue in the negotiations between unions and employers that have just begun. Don’t miss new videos explaining how pensions and insurance work in Sweden. And see where in Sweden engineers have the highest salaries. Welcome to Ingenjören’s first news summary in English.
An increasing number of members of Engineers of Sweden come from other countries and do not speak Swedish. Therefore, the digital member magazine Ingenjören will publish monthly summaries in English of selected articles.
We link to the article in Swedish so that those who wish to know more can translate the full text. Sometimes, we also share information from Engineers of Sweden or other organizations.
This is our first summary of news in English.
We hope you enjoy it!
Employers want to eliminate reduced working hours
Many conditions in the Swedish labor market are regulated through collective agreements negotiated between trade unions and employers. This year, around 500 collective agreements will be renegotiated, making this year’s bargaining round a record-breaking one. The negotiations will affect over 3.4 million employees.
Just before Christmas, the bargaining round began when the trade unions and employers presented their demands. The unions in the industrial sector, which includes Engineers of Sweden, are demanding wage increases of 4.2 percent in a one-year agreement.
One of Engineers of Sweden’s demands is for more reductions in working hours through time banks, which have been developed over many years through collective agreements in the industrial sector. Time banks can be used for longer leaves of absence or to work fewer hours per week.
Now, the employers have announced their intention to terminate agreements on working hour reductions. The drastic demand from employers is motivated by the threat from political parties regarding legislation for shorter working hours. This is a threat that the trade unions also oppose.
“Neither we nor the employers want statutory reductions in working hours. We agree on that, and therefore it’s better that we try to work towards a joint solution,“ says Camilla Frankelius, chief negotiator at Engineers of Sweden.
The negotiations within the industrial sector must be concluded by March 31, when the previous two-year agreement, which included wage increases of 7.4 percent, expires.
Learn more about pensions and insurance in Sweden
A tip for those who want to learn more about pensions and insurance is a series of short informational videos about pensions and insurance in English, produced by Avtalat.
Learn more about Avtalat and what they do
How engineers’ salaries differ between counties
Engineers’ salaries remain high in Stockholm and other metropolitan counties. However, when looking at salary growth, some other counties rank high on the list.
In this article, you can hover your mouse over a map to see the relative salary levels for engineers in different parts of Sweden. A table shows the average individual salary increases in various counties from 2021 to 2023.
Reduction in unemployment for Engineers
Unemployment among members of Engineers of Sweden has risen from 0.77 percent in May 2023 to 1.33 percent in August 2024. However, it has since decreased, reaching 1.24 percent in December.
“Now it looks like we’ve peaked. It’s a bit early to confirm, but we’ve had a couple of months of decline. And with GDP increasing and lower inflation, I’m cautiously optimistic,“ says Johan Kreicbergs, Head of Social Policy at Engineers of Sweden.
Unemployment among engineers is low compared to other professions. Most engineers who become unemployed also find jobs relatively quickly.
The construction sector has been hit the hardest. However, it is also within this group that the situation has improved the most. Unemployment for civil engineers in construction decreased from 2.7 percent in August to 2.2 percent in December.
More than 100 could lose their jobs at Novo Energy
Novo Energy, co-owned by Volvo Cars and the crisis-stricken battery company Northvolt, has announced layoffs for 120 employees. This represents 30 percent of the workforce.
Engineers of Sweden responds in the newspaper Göteborgs Posten that it is unclear how it will affect their members.
“A notice of layoffs is always unfortunate and naturally creates concern among employees. Together with other affected unions, we will review the consequences of the proposal presented by the company,“ said Katarina Atterström, head of Engineers of Sweden’s Gothenburg and Malmö offices.
Engineers of Sweden will focus on supporting its members in the best way possible during the upcoming process.
In March 2024, the groundbreaking ceremony for Novo Energy’s battery factory in Torslanda took place. The construction of the factory will continue to complete the first phase, according to Novo Energy’s communications director, Christian Jebsen. Production was planned to begin next year.
Spotify engineer wrote an opinion piece
In Sweden, there is a ban on night work, but several areas are exempted: process industries, healthcare, public transport, taxi services, and restaurants. For other sectors, night work is allowed if a collective agreement is in place and the parties agree on night work.
Spotify is a company that has chosen not to sign a collective agreement. Instead, the company sought an exemption from the ban on night work. When Spotify’s request was denied, Katarina Berg, the Sweden Director, wrote an article arguing that Swedish bureaucracy hinders the company and that the law should be changed.
This prompted Alexander Häger, one of Spotify’s engineers, to respond. Together with the chair of Unionen at Spotify, he wrote an opinion piece for the newspaper Dagens Industri.
In the article, they write that collective agreements are an easy way to facilitate night work. Collective agreements also provide co-determination in the workplace. This would have been an advantage, especially last year when Spotify laid off employees.
“I thought the layoffs were handled unfairly. The company could have done a better job if there had been union representatives,“ says Alexander Hägg, who hopes that Spotify will sign a collective agreement.
Upskilling: Courses you can take while working
Most technical universities today offer courses for professional engineers, but the format doesn’t suit everyone. For several years now, the initiative Ingenjör4.0 has been designed to allow engineers to study alongside their jobs.
The courses are conducted in English and each course requires approximately 20 hours of study (most courses span five weeks). They include various components: recorded lectures, self-study, and 2–5 mandatory webinars.
As a member of Engineers of Sweden, you can now take these courses free of charge.
Read more (in Swedish) about the offer from Engineers of Sweden.
Have you seen our guide in English?
Ingenjören is a digital membership magazine, but in 2024, we produced a printed edition. This one-shot has been sent out to many workplaces with a local trade union. The hope is that it will spark interest among engineers to become members of Engineers of Sweden.
The magazine is in Swedish but also includes a guide in English with articles that may be of interest to engineers who are new to Sweden. Among other things, it provides answers to why you are more secure with a collective agreement, what engineers earn in 19 different industries, and what the Swedish model, which many talk about, actually is.
To the printed magazine (the guide in English on pages 47-67)
IT consultant from India became a local union representative
When IT engineer Thivakar Allimuthu moved to Sweden from India, he was surprised to find that many of his colleagues were union members. Just a few months later, he became a local union representative at his workplace.
In an interview with Ingenjören, Thiva shares how he learned about Swedish laws and collective agreements and what surprised him the most about Sweden.
Read the interview with Thivakar Allimuthu in English
More to read in English
Here you find all our articles in English
