The head of the Swedish car manufacturer Volvo has created quite a stir at home, saying that his company struggles to attract foreign specialists due to the lack of public security and may be considering moving elsewhere.
Speaking to the daily Svenska Dagbladet, Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson lamented the fact that the auto manufacturer has been gradually losing its appeal to foreign tech experts and engineers, as well as top managers. The problem, according to him, partly lies in the fact that the specialists are reluctant to move to Sweden’s second largest city of Gothenburg, where Volvo’s headquarters are located, because of the arguably high crime rate.
“We are building cars, we cannot solve this problem,” Samuelsson told SvD. “Yet, one can still point out that this problem does exist.” Among the other issues he mentioned were the lack of affordable housing and schools.
The Volvo CEO even mentioned that the company might potentially consider moving its headquarters somewhere else – probably even out of Sweden – if this situation does not change. He hastened to say that Volvo is not considering such possibility just yet, but he would not completely rule it out in the future.
Samuelsson’s words provoked an angry reaction from Gothenburg police chief Erik Nord, who dismissed them as “unfair.”
The general situation in the city is not that bad, he said, explaining that something that is seen as “normal” elsewhere somehow gets “undeservedly great attention” in Sweden.