Despite the corona crisis, the truck giant Scania is now hiring several hundred people to cope with increased production, Ekot experiences. It is going better than expected.
Scania is now hiring new production staff to be able to increase the production of trucks, according to information to Ekot.
In Södertälje, where the company has its largest factory, around 300 people will be newly hired to cope with the increased production, which is both due to the fact that more people than expected want to buy new trucks and because the existing orders already need to be processed.
Scania’s owner Traton also issued a so-called reverse profit warning the other day, announcing that the recovery, during the third quarter, was faster than expected.
Also in Oskarshamn, Scania has employed about 50 people during the autumn and there the production rate is gradually increasing.
The truck manufacturer is one of Sweden’s largest employers and has around 19,000 employees.
In general, things are now clearly better than expected for the economically important automotive industry in Sweden. For example, the recovery is also fast for AB Volvo and Volvo Cars.
Few had thought it would look this good when the corona crisis hit the automotive industry hardest this spring and factories closed again and sales plummeted.
Scania’s CEO Henrik Henriksson said recently, at the digital conference Stora Leverantörsdagen, that the situation looks brighter than expected.
– I think the market is stronger than we had expected and we also have a strong order book. This means that we increase the pace quite significantly during the autumn. We also feel that we will be able to keep up with it next year as well, Henriksson said at the conference.
But it is still worse than before the pandemic, he stated.
– We are still lower than 2019, but it is not as bad as it felt in May, June and July.
There is also an uncertainty about the future and how the pandemic will affect the demand for trucks and buses in the slightly longer term.
At the same time as production is now going at full speed, Scania will reduce the number of salaried employees in Södertälje by around 1,000 people. Globally, the plan has been to reduce the number of employees by 5,000 people.
Scania does not want to comment at this time, but refers to the company’s quarterly report which will be published in early November. Until then, the company only refers to Traton’s stock exchange announcement.
Source: ICELAND NEWS