Susanne commutes 120 miles – to work

When Susanne Redebo locks the door in Mariefred, she has twelve hours to work. Two weeks per month she works on site in Övertorneå, two weeks remotely from Södermanland.

In the 80s, she was one of many who moved from Norrbotten to Stockholm to find work – now she makes the same journey in the other direction.

During the pandemic, she lost her job at a newspaper in Mälardalen, and instead got a job in her childhood municipality, which has a major labor shortage.

100,000 people are missing

In order to cope with the industrial investments in northern Sweden, government investigators estimate that 100,000 people must move to Norrbotten and Västerbotten.

– In Övertorneå municipality, we have a shortage of labor in many industries. It has changed a lot just in the last ten years, says Tomas Mörtberg (C).

Rikard Eriksson, professor of economic geography at Umeå University, sees a big challenge in managing to get enough labour.

– Today, basically all municipalities except Umeå, Skellefteå, Piteå and Luleå are shrinking in population. And with those conditions, it will be very difficult to grow as much as Norr- and Västerbotten must grow.

“It has to change”

There are also, as he sees it, other cultural challenges.

– After all, it is an urban norm that has ruled for a long time about what a successful life is – a big city life, while sparsely populated areas have been the opposite. That must change, says Rikard Eriksson.

Watch Homecoming on SVT Play.

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