Northvolt AB is a Swedish battery developer and manufacturer, specialising in lithium-ion technology for electric vehicles. The company was founded in 2015, it commissioned its first manufacturing plant in Skelleftea, Sweden in 2021 and has announced plans for five others in Europe and North America.
In less than 9 years, the Swedish government has funded Northvolt with $88,290,000 of the total $882,900,000 the company has received. Despite the huge funding from various investors, the factory's capacity was no more than 1% of its full potential last fall. In the first nine months of 2023, the company's loss amounted to $97,120,000 and the last three months were even worse.
The Canadian factory manager Mark Duchesne says in an interview with the Swedish financial newspaper Dagens Industri that quote "We had a very, very tough fourth quarter. Probably the worst quarter of my entire career. It was tough for the staff and for us as a company.” unquote.
Northvolt One, which is the name of the Swedish factory, has stated that they particularly want to attract women quote "Women have long been underrepresented in the industrial sector, we want to change that." unquote.
According to Northvolt's expansion manager Katarina Borstedt, there are not enough people locally, so their entire recruitment strategy is based on supporting the municipality in the work to increase in-migration. Together with the municipality, Northvolt has various projects to find people who have the right potential for the positions they are looking for and who are interested in moving. Because these workers lack the skills needed to work in the industry, the company must train them.
Given the huge delay, the enormous losses and a nightmare year 2023 for the factory manager, a logical conclusion should be that it would be better to hire the right skills from the beginning.
As a taxpayer, I want my hard-earned money to be treated with respect.
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