(Bloomberg) -- Troubled Swedish battery maker Northvolt AB has laid off nearly 400 white-collar workers at its center of operations in Skelleftea as part of concluded negotiations with two of the Swedish trade unions.
The redundancies form part of a previously announced measure to cut 1,000 jobs at the Northvolt Ett plant in northern Sweden. The maker of electric vehicle batteries is racing to preserve cash while it negotiates a new financing pact with investors.
“It has been a month of negotiations under enormous time pressure for us as local union representatives for Unionen,” Shaneika Jeffreys, co-vice chair for Unionen at Northvolt in Skelleftea said in emailed comments. “However, we agree with the employer that these tough decisions need to be made to secure the company’s future.”
Unionen said a total of 180 white-collar workers are being made redundant at the main factory while the union Engineers of Sweden told Bloomberg that as many as 85 of its members will be laid off at the plant. A further 124 employees are losing their jobs in connection to Northvolt Expansion Ett, which filed for bankruptcy last week.
Exit packages have also been concluded for staff in other parts of the business, according to the unions. The engineers union said a total of 330 of its members will be affected by job losses and Unionen pointed to a further 34 positions in Stockholm and Vasteras.
“This is part of the already announced process and it’s not fully concluded for all areas,” a spokesperson for Northvolt said. Results from negotiations with the blue-collar union IF Metall are yet to be announced.
--With assistance from Christopher Jungstedt.
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